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09/01/2004:

"Nobody But Bush"

by Rootsie

It seems like everybody woke up today and realized John Kerry is going to lose. Badly. Weirdly enough, Arnold's speech at the RNC last night ripped it.

It was the night of the post-modern Republican. Against a spartan and tasteful backdrop (where the guady red, white, and blue banners and balloons and cavorting elephants?), and the pixillated split screens, first Schwartzenegger and the MTV Bush twins, crackin wise on Gammy Barbara and uncool (and yet cool) mom Laura...where were the Republicans?

Where Jerry Falwell? Where the blue-haired ladies from Texas? Instead of Pat Boone, the Harlem Boys' Choir. Instead of 'family values,' sexy talk and sculpted macho brawn. The camera pans to wife Maria Shriver, looking sleek and horsey and o so Kennedy (for all that she didn't know what to do with her hands-clap as her hubby led the crowd in chanting 'four more years'?). Iraq war as action-hero-land.

All to be said is 'brilliant.' If this was Rove's show, you have to hand it to him. The trap is sprung, and Kerry and Company stepped right in. The script was flipped-this time it was the Democrats with the busy suffocating decor, the sentimental slop, the painting of their candidate as super-patriot, the paeans to God and country. The Republicans look young and hip, tanned GW on the jumbo-tron in cornflower-blue shirt and blue jeans, smiling indulgently as his daughters roast him. Very GQ. Wife Laura delivered a low-key answer to Teresa Heinz's speech, celebrating the girls in Afghanistan who now can go to school, the females in the crowd waving "'W' Stands for Women" signs.

Nary a peep about the war at the Democrats' convention-the Republicans on the other hand never stopped talking about it, about the peace-loving president forced by history into the role of war-time leader. The reluctant, conflicted post-modern hero.

This election comes down to the 'undecideds,' and the Republicans did not need a media spectacle highlighting their apocalyptic Christian power base. No talking about aborted fetuses and the sanctity of hetero marriage. No. They needed to portray a Republican party embracing diversity, celebrating divergent opinions, welcoming the poor lost sheep in from the cold. They succeeded. A lot of those young Republicans in the crowd in their tailored suits look positively metro.

And Kerry made it so easy. By wrapping himself in the flag and trying to embue Vietnam in a golden glow a la WWII, he showed that the Democrats are hopelessly out of their league when it comes to the propoganda and pageantry of this new media age. They are the old fogies reminiscing in their wheelchairs while the Republicans carry it forward.

Few in that enormous march on Sunday carried signs for Kerry. 'Anyone But Bush' has backfired. Duh. Anybody but Bush has turned out to be nobody.

Remember Wavy Gravy in the 70's and his 'Nobody for President?' Because Nobody loves you when you're down and out. And Nobody cares.