Andrew Golis

I just saw an online ad for John Kerry on CNN. Let me preface this with saying that I will be voting for Senator Kerry, and it is looking like I will even be increasingly likely to work for his reelection in some fashion. However, I noticed something.

The picture that accompanied the ad had Kerry with one fist triumphantly raised and a big grin on his face, like a boxer after a victorious bout. Now, I understand that the image is intended to motivate people by giving them the image of Kerry Victory over Bush, by painting the picture of Kerry the fighter and Kerry the winner. In fact, it may even be successful at doing this. However, I cannot remember any publicity ad ever, of Howard Dean doing this. Of course, Dean lost so maybe he should have, but that’s another thought.

The point is that for the Dean campaign, both in Dean’s eyes and in the eyes of his supporters, it wasn’t about Victory for Dean. It was about Victory for us. While he of course had his own arrogances and dilussions, Dean didn’t strut around like he thought he was JFK *cough*. Now, I’ve pretty much consistently said this from the beginning, but it seems to me that John Kerry wants to be President because he thinks he’d look good in the oval office. Not to say that he isn’t passionate about issues and about principles (seriously!), but there’s a level of ego trip that is a part of this.

And the funny thing is that for political reasons the campaign has run with this image. That, to me, says more about politics than it even does about Kerry or Dean.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 24th, 2004 at 4:06 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.