Opinion
 

Kerry, Democrats must forge own identity

Paul Saleeba

I admire the Republican Party -- they stand for things and are proud of it. They proudly stand against gay marriage, on the grounds that it would bring about the collapse of western civilization. It's the same thing they said acknowledging homosexuals as legitimate members of society or mixing races would do in the 1950s. These things, as you know, would cause civilization to disintegrate or America to fall to communism. But Republican rhetoric is exciting, bold, powerful stuff, even if you don't like it. Too bad Democrats like John Kerry and Al Gore never got it.

Howard Dean and Ralph Nader got the right idea. They realized that standing up and fighting for something works great. People in this age are begging for heroes, people we can respect with ideals we can fall in love with. Bush's "uniter, not a divider" and "with us or against us" statements are blatant lies and dangerous policy, but aside from that, they stir people to action and give them a reason to care. Dean's Hulk Hogan moment which doomed him to the "angry man" label was inspiring stuff. It had passion and appeal -- his idealism and antiwar stance drew many liberals who had felt betrayed by Clinton and the Democratic Party.

What Kerry lacks and the Republican Party dominates in is having a strong and decisive position. Kerry just seems to want to be as inoffensive as possible. Many Republicans are all for an unlimited war, for nuclear weapon use as legitimate strategy and for homosexuals being treated as second class citizens. Like it or not, they are not like the Democrats, who are not very for or against anything. Democrats might be for gay rights, just not gay marriage. They might be, if the president is, sort of for the war, maybe. All the Democrats have going for them as a party is that they're not the Republicans, and sadly, this has carried them along very well this year where the mantra for the left in this election is "Anybody but Bush again."

This brings us to where we've been issue-wise with the primaries: the ability of a candidate to beat Bush. Which seems to be a very sad issue in itself as it suggests that either Bush is so good, we have to find someone with the best shot of beating him, or that Bush is so terrible that anyone could beat him and the issues don't even matter. Neither thought appeals to me really as that means whatever these guys think doesn't matter. Kerry seems like Clinton without the charm, which says very little about Kerry. He has no message other than he's the one to beat Bush -- he barely has a voice for himself.

Saleeba, a columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at marskitt3n@hotmail.com.