For the last year the Democratic party has been running almost single handedly on a Bush bashing agenda, known affectionately as ABB (Anyone But Bush). Now comes word that Bush bashing has been banned in Boston via The New York Times (Registration Required).
First, we’ll believe it when we see it. Second, is America really ready for a convention of monotone Kerry clones?
It’s worth noting that anything French is out too…
Update: Oliver Willis notes that a representative GOP lineup might be – be Ashcroft, Santorum, Falwell, Buchanan, Keyes, and Limbaugh. There’s no doubt that the GOP is playing a game similar to the one Kerry is playing, in stocking the keynotes with moderates.
If it’s to be an apples to apples comparison though, what the GOP would have to do is invite Oliver’s lineup to speak, but strip all the Kerry bashing out of their speeches. That would be about as interesting as watching an Al Gore speech without the fire-brand Bush hating. Oops, I forgot we’re going to have that pleasure…
Update 2: Allah points out a potential violation of the French rule. It’s worth noting that no such spectacle played out between Bill and Hillary.
Then what do they got?
That’s the $64,000 question, although in these inflated campaign spending time “the $64M question” is more accurate…
“…Kerry’s rules…behind the convention stage in the FleetCenter, inside a converted locker room jammed with rows of desks, sit a dozen speechwriters who are working double shifts and revising scores of the more than 160 speeches…”
HEY! It’s called a republic! Process is supposed to be a democracy, as a republic!
I am thinking that the current permutation of the DNC sounds very much like a dictatorship, something communist — do it “the Party way” or suffer the editorial rewrites to the contrary (among other things they’ve already leaked about what they have planned).
I realize that the NYTimes is interested in presenting the DNC in the best liberal light possible, but printing anything actual about the DNC at this point just blows all the covers: they’re socialists, it’s communism they have in mind, but the *friendliest, smiling-est, best possible kind imaginable*.
After listening to tonight’s speakers, the strategy seems to be just:
1) Don’t froth
2) Let the evil one’s name not be uttered
It’s like the Dems have Joe Liebermann, and the Republicans have Zell Miller, except that the Dems don’t have Joe Liebermann.