New dawn for Bush
A Texas-sized optimism outshone Kerry's debating skills
Oct. 14, 2004 12:00 AM
The rugged grind of three debates has tested the spirits of both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry. That much was evident as both candidates for president struggled for some fresh expression in their final confrontation Wednesday night at Arizona State University's Gammage Auditorium.
Who won the debate? Each candidate certainly had his moments.
But when it comes to domestic issues, demeanor matters. Expectations matter. Optimism and ideas really matter.
Whatever dangers may lurk on the nation's domestic horizon, America's strength has been that it will work out those problems. Eventually, it will set things right. And it expects in its leaders a reflection of that optimism.
So, who won the tempest in Tempe? The candidate with the painting of a west Texas dawn in his office. The one who declares with an unrestrained ebullience that "God wants everybody to be free."
Let us acknowledge, as though it needs any further acknowledgment, that as a pure debater, John Kerry is the better of the two candidates.
But the debate at Gammage was not a bloodless academic contest dictated by style and scored like a ball game. It was a demonstration of which of two men would best do what every wise leader since Franklin D. Roosevelt has done: Challenge Americans to rise beyond their difficulties.
Bush did that. For all the havoc a tax cut plays on a federal deficit that Congress (and, in fairness, the president) is unwilling to manage, the economy fares far better when government puts more money in the hands of the people earning it. That is Bush's view, which he expressed forcefully.
The American condition fares far better, too, when tough issues like illegal immigration are viewed - as Bush said he views them - as human-rights matters as well as questions of security.
Bush's comment about God and freedom was a point about Iraq, certainly. But it also fairly describes Bush's view of undocumented immigrants in this country, the one position expressed by the president that recalled the "compassionate conservatism" of his 2000 campaign.
In contrast, Kerry's view of conditions on the American ground is grim. There seems to be nothing that Bush cannot be blamed for in John Kerry's world.
Kerry's vision of America as expressed in the debate is one of oppression and victimization. His assessment that there are public schools for those "who have" and schools for those who "do not have" is a judgment seemingly buried in pre-Brown vs. Board of Education. Is there no room for acknowledgment of any good thing?
Racial discrimination - a crime that American law does not countenance in any form - remains widespread across the nation in Kerry's view, justifying the continuation of affirmative action.
Reality tells us Kerry is right, of course. It's true that the long march toward a just world has miles yet to go. But is there no room to acknowledge something regarding the remarkable changes that have transpired in Kerry's lifetime?
Yes, John Kerry has innumerable plans for the economy, for health care reform and for Social Security. But as expressed in Tempe, Kerry's "plans" seem to constitute a recitation of Bush's alleged failures.
If the stilted debate format employed Wednesday night provided any table-thumping moment at all, it came when Bush observed of Kerry that "a plan isn't a litany of complaints."
Many of the subjects raised at the debate by moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News ranged toward the personal. He asked about the role of religion in the candidates' lives. He also asked about their views regarding homosexuality, a more personal matter than the political issues pertaining to same-sex marriage.
Kerry's answer spoke not of candor, but of strategy.
Like his vice-presidential running mate, Sen. John Edwards, Kerry referenced Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter when he was asked, "Is homosexuality a choice?" Was this leaden dig at the perceived hypocrisy of Bush really necessary?
Edwards' awkward, ill-timed reference to Cheney's lesbian daughter seemed odd during his debate. But Kerry's comment oozed of crass strategy.
Whether the polls acknowledge it or not, the president emerged from this debate on a positive note. Kerry cannot say the same.
