| Too Much Gravitas for Ribs |
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May 12 2004 |
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is unbelievable. No, it's believable. It's just... it's unbelievable and believable at the same time. [Reading from the Washington Prowler:] "'Presumptive, (assumed) Democrat presidential candidate (nominee) John Kerry thinks he has a gravitas problem. 'He thinks he has too much of it, and he thinks that's a problem,' says a former campaign staffer. To counteract his perceived perception he's too serious and weighted down by the vagaries of intellectual and physical prowess and nuance, Kerry's staff has had him using humor in his stump speeches. For example, over the weekend while talking about health care reform, Kerry cracked that he 'would not delve into too much detail.' No one in the audience seemed to get the humor. As well, Kerry told a reporter he 'enjoyed going out for beers with the guys, knocking back a few and whooping it up.' A former Kerry staffer said, 'It's not easy humanizing a guy like Kerry. You have Vietnam; you have friends who can speak to his private life, but Kerry himself is not a great advocate for himself in that regard. He's just too stiff and patrician.'"
He's a dryball! It goes back -- remember, when I was in New York, I guess it was last week -- what was it? Karen Tumulty "He's just too smart! He's just too smart to know what to say. He's got to try to go out there and just be a real guy," and what is it, "You have Vietnam"? Have we done this enough, Kerry people? Do you think we have made the point that he was in Vietnam? Everybody, I think, knows this now, and then they say, "Well, he has friends who can speak to his private life but Kerry himself is not a great advocate." I warned you people with this. I told you from the earliest days of the primaries that one of the problems that the Kerry people themselves knew was that he needs surrogates to go out and speak for him, because he doesn't represent himself well. |
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 "Just how serious a problem this is and how desperate the Kerry campaign is to try to shatter the stiff myth [sic] was again apparent during Kerry's swing through Jacksonville, Florida, and Orlando on Tuesday. Both are areas that are thought to be Bush strongholds, though in 2000 Gore made a race of both places in the general election. So Kerry's staff decided that their man needed to spend some time down and dirty with the everyday folk. They asked..." This reminds me, by the way, of when he went and got a cheesesteak. Remember how he looked holding that cheesesteak sandwich in Philadelphia? Looked like it was the plague and then he asked for it with provolone cheese on it and was -- Swiss, get provolone, he asked for Swiss -- and everybody was just stunned. But I mean, he was holding this thing like he had no desire to get anywhere near it, while he's out there trying to be a "real guy."
It's hard to take an elitist snob and make him a real guy, folks. This is the basic problem. I'll use my own words here. Kerry campaign will not call this a stiff, just "not a great advocate for himself in that regard." He's just too "patrician." It means he's an elitist snob! That's what "patrician" means. He's a blue-blooder, or thinks he is. So, anyway, they decided to get him into Jacksonville with the reeeal folk -- and that meant they had to ask Congressperson Corrine Brown, "the Democrat who represents the Jacksonville congressional district, to do some research and find a local hole in the wall that Kerry could visit.
"'They said it had to be a place where Senator Kerry could appear to just make an impromptu stop, nothing planned,'" But it was all planned; it was all choreographed. They had to find some hole in the wall that Kerry would never otherwise on his own venture into, but they had to make it look like he was just stopping in because he really wanted to go to this hole in the wall and have (a drink). Can you imagine, Corrine Brown's phone rings: "Hello?" [Parodying Kerry's condescending, patrician attitude:] Hey, Corrine, how are you? This is such-and-such in the Kerry campaign. "Oh, nice you to hear from you. How are you?" Good. We're coming to your town, and we want, you know, this Kerry's got this gravitas problem, and we need him to really meet some down home, your kind of people, Corrine. Can you find some dank hole in-the-wall kind of place we can take Kerry to so he can meet real people, kind of like the low-lives that live in your neighborhood? |
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Imagine Corrine Brown getting this phone call? Yeah, she might not know what gravitas is, so they didn't say that. No, we love Corrine Brown here. Corrine, you can't dislike. It's hard to dislike Corrine Brown. [program observer interruption] That's why we like her, Mr. Snerdley. (Laughing.) He called her a name here I'm not going to repeat, but she's fun. I mean, Corrine's comic relief. You know, Corrine and Carrie Meeks get up there on the floor of the House, start making speeches, I mean it's fun. It's like when what's his face, Fortney "Pete" Stark gets going. You never know what's going to be said. Or Major Owens. They're all in the same crowd. But here's Corrine Brown down in Jacksonville, and she of course obviously respects her district and the people in it and the Kerry people call and say, "Hey, we need to go down and meet some real folks. We need to find this dank hole-in-the-wall place that he would never go. The kind of place your constituents go, Corrine. Can you set something up for us?"
 Can you imagine that phone call? Is that not brilliant? Is this not the smartest candidate the Democrats have ever nominated? And they said it had to be set up so it looked impromptu, even though it was choreographed down to every step Kerry took. They said it had to be a place where Kerry could appear to just make an impromptu stop, nothing planned says "a Democratic National Committee staffer doing work in Florida." [Continuing to read, picking up with staffer's quote:] "'The campaign had a bunch of people scrambling for the right spot.' That spot turned out to be a Jenkins' Quality Bar-B-Q franchise." So they took Kerry to Corrine Brown's district and they found a barbecue joint, Jenkins' Quality Bar-B-Q. Kerry arrived at the restaurant with Corrine Brown in tow, made a point of ordering some ribs (on the house, as it turned out), and after he ordered the ribs while he's waiting for the ribs to be delivered he asked to look at the kitchen.
Then, he announced to all that none of the workers at Jenkins' Quality Barbecue franchise had health insurance. And with that, he and his contingent of staff and reporters left. They didn't eat the ribs, they walked out in protest, at this barbecue place because the staff didn't have health insurance, and Corrine Brown had gone to the trouble of setting it all up. "Kerry, the everyday guy, barely touched his ribs, perhaps because there wasn't a knife and fork and a silk napkin around." This story is in the American Prowler, the Prowler today, on the American Spectator website. A Democrat media consultant in Washington said, "That they have to stage these things, and then he can't even perform isn't a good sign. You'd think they'd have learned from that cheesesteak fiasco in Philadelphia, where Kerry didn't even know what the sandwich was. Just give up and let him be who he is." |
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But nobody has confidence in that. Can you imagine? They go all the trouble of setting up this place; they find the ideal "hole in the wall" --and that's their term -- and it ends up to be this barbecue joint, and Kerry goes in there, finds out that the staff doesn't have health insurance and he walks out "in protest" trying to make a point against Bush and all these there to do is just meet the reeeal folk. I don't know, it didn't say what happened to Corrine. I don't know if she was stranded there or if she left with Kerry as well. You don't know what happened to Corrine for finding a place that Kerry couldn't go to because the workers didn't have health insurance, but if this just doesn't say it all about this campaign. There's nothing better, but you know something? [program observer interruption] Well, I'll get to that in just a second.
 But before I get to that, the thing that's amazing here to me is that the American Spectator is a conservative publication, and all of these unnamed Democrat DNC staffers are talking. They are the source. How else would anybody know about this? It has to be Democrats that are letting the cat out of the bag as to what a fiasco this is. Now, Corrine Brown, (Program Observer) Mr. Snerdley wants me mention this because he thinks it's relevant. Corrine Brown is black and represents a black district in Jacksonville, and he's asking, "Does nobody think there's a bit of a stereotype here when they choose a barbecue joint?" Is that your point? Yeah, I know. Gore would go to the fried chicken joints. I know. I wasn't going to mention it, Mr. Snerdley, until you jogged my sensitivity on this, and I thought, "All right, well, if it's on people's minds, I'll go ahead and mention it."
That's one thing, but to go in there, order some ribs, and then ask to see the kitchen? Now, obviously when you go to the kitchen and you talk to staff, and the first [program observer interruption]. Oh, maybe he wanted to see whether it was clean? Maybe did he did, but the point is how do you go in this place, the first question is [Kerry sing-song drone], "Heeeey, you guys, I'm John Keeeerry and I was in Vietnaaaam. Tell me about your health insuraaaance." What kind of guy does this? You know, this is like Gore going to an air traffic control center and asking them what they think of a global warming movie, and when they say, "Oh, we thought it was pretty good," they walk out, or he walks out. The way these people think, folks, is just laughable. |
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 Let me, as I am wont to do, offer some assistance to this fledging campaign. I say call Kerry and say, "Hey, Kerry babe. Set us up with some hole-in-the-wall place in your neighborhood." So she goes and finds a barbecue joint, goes in there, orders some ribs, supposed to be a big photo op, sitting there getting all greasy and dirty with his hands, eating the ribs with the real people, goes back to the kitchen for some odd reason, finds out they don't have health insurance, and walks out. Just passed up a huge opportunity.
What John Kerry should have done, after he discovered they had no health insurance, was to come out in outrage and somehow find a way to blame the Bush administration or Congress or whatever for not caring about the real people of this country and then vowing as president he will do something about it. But no! His reaction is, "Oh my gosh, I am dead! If I get caught in a place where they're not unionized and don't have health insurance, and I'm patronizing it, well, I'm dead."
He is worried about what other constituent groups that make up the Democratic Party are gonna think, so he's in a total defensive posture, rather than seizing an opportunity here and turning it into what might be a campaign plus. I mean, liberals run around all the time, love to run around complaining that nobody has any health insurance, and here he just found proof. All these millions of Americans with no insurance and he "happens" to end up in a place where they don't have it? Made to order, and he walks out. This is political tone deafism.
END TRANSCRIPT |
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Read the Article... |
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Source: Washington Prowler
Subheadline: Let Them Eat Ribs
Headline: Kerry Lite
Date: May 12, 2004
Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry thinks he has a gravitas problem. "He thinks he has too much of it, and he thinks that's a problem," says a former campaign staffer.
To counteract his perceived perception that he is too serious and weighted down by the vagaries of intellectual and physical prowess, Kerry's staff has had him using humor in his stump speeches.
For example, over the weekend, while talking about health care reform, Kerry cracked that he would not delve into too much detail. No one in the audience appeared to see the humor.
As well, Kerry told a reporter that he enjoyed going out for beers with the fellows, knocking back a few and whooping it up. "It's not easy humanizing a guy like Kerry," says the former staffer. "You have Vietnam, and you have friends who can speak to his private life, but Kerry himself is not a great advocate for himself in that regard. He's just too stiff and patrician."
Just how serious a problem it is, and how desperate the Kerry campaign is to try to shatter the stiff myth, was again apparent during Kerry's swing through Jacksonville and Orlando on Tuesday. Both are areas that are thought to be Bush strongholds, though in 2000, Gore made a race of both in the general election.
So Kerry's staff decided their man needed to spend some time down and dirty with the everyday folk. They asked Rep. Corrine Brown, the Democrat who represents the Jacksonville congressional district, to do some research and find a local hole in the wall that Kerry could visit.
"They said it had to be a place where Senator Kerry could appear to just make an impromptu stop, nothing planned," says a Democratic National Committee staffer doing work in Florida. "The campaign had a bunch of people scrambling for the right spot."
That spot turned out to be a Jenkins' Quality Bar-B-Que franchise. Kerry, who arrived at the restaurant with Brown in tow, made a point of ordering some ribs (on the house, as it turned out), asked to look at the kitchen, then announced to all that none of the workers had health insurance! With that, he and his contingent of staff and reporters left. Kerry the everyday guy barely touched his ribs. Perhaps because there wasn't a knife and fork and silk napkin around.
"That they have to stage these things, and then he can't even perform isn't a good sign," says a Democratic media consultant in Washington, D.C. "You'd think they'd have learned from that cheesesteak fiasco in Philadelphia, where Kerry didn't even know what the sandwich was. Just give up and let him be who he is."
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