Above is the cover illustration we created for the March 2004 issue of The Intellectual Activist. In the cover article, Fine Young Cannibals, Robert Tracinski examines the socialistic ideas that united Senators Kerry and Edwards even when they were competing against each other in the primaries.
[Being "electable," unlike Howard Dean,] was the role of Senator Edwards, who dressed up class-warfare cannibalism in a benevolent demeanor -- but more important, it is the key to the success of John Kerry.Kerry does not present himself with a sunny, smiling exterior, but with an appearance better calculated to win the job of president. While Edwards is cheerful, Kerry is grave; while Edwards is fair-haired and boyish, Kerry appears grey-haired and mature; while Edwards is smiling, Kerry adopts a sloped-eyebrowed, sad Basset-hound expression intended to make him appear thoughtful, dignified, senatorial -- and, he hopes, presidential.
While Edwards's sunny disposition is calculated to put a nice face on the class-warfare cannibalism of his economic agenda, Kerry's appearance is meant to cover up the most important feature of his campaign -- and the one issue on which the Democrats most need the protective façade of a gravely serious demeanor: an agenda of foreign-policy surrender.
I think the Edwards pick for vice president is also yet another flip-flop for Kerry, who in January dismissed the importance of Southern states (see this cartoon):
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., is discounting notions that any Democratic candidate would have to appeal to Southern voters in order to win the presidency, calling such thinking a "mistake" during a speech at Dartmouth College.
As was noted then, that's exactly how Al Gore lost in 2000 -- his home state of Tennessee would have won him the presidency.
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