Michael Jackson TalkRadio Content

f you live in Los Angeles and judge the popularity of presidential candidates by the number of supportive bumper stickers you see, while commuting on our car-strangled-spanners, known more officially as freeways, then Kerry and Edwards have victory in their grasp. Venturing south from here into Orange County you'll see many for Bush and Cheney. While San Diego, California's second largest city, will probably give the majority to Bush, San Francisco to the North is almost certainly a Kerry enclave. California will almost certainly be giving its electoral college votes to the Democrat. A similar scenario is most likely to occur in New York State. I wonder what it is that makes the Big Apple and the Big Orange so enlightened!
Tomorrow is the start of the debating season; three meetings between the president and the challenger with a most stultifying 32 pages of instructions about everything from the height of the podium and distance between the two, to the temperature in the studio. As Americans, pretty generally, appear to prefer the taller candidate, they wanted the separation to lessen the appearance of a tall Kerry and a moderately sized Bush. And the thermostat requirement? They know that the Senator has been known to perspire under the lights and the Republicans would love to have the world see Kerry sweating.
This first encounter is anything but a debate, it is in fact more akin to two simultaneous press conferences. Each candidate given just so many seconds to answer, and an exact number of minutes rebuttal time. They are not even allowed to address each other directly. They may, or may not adhere to the agreement. But what if one of them takes the bull by the horns and looks at the other and says exactly how he feels about his opponent...do they send him off stage and give him demerits? These two men are battling for the most powerful office in the world.
The director may not show a close up of one candidate while the other is speaking, so we will not see the body language of the opponent. There are such critical challenges ahead, wouldn't it be an excellent opportunity for the two to be much straighter with us about all of the critical foreign policy issues. In all likelihood (and I pray that I am wrong), we are simply going to get a rehashing of all they've been saying on the campaign trail. The incumbent has the advantage for more than one reason, but the obvious one is that the polls show the Republican in the lead and gaining. Kerry has to go in with guns blazing. I would like to hear them speak, with conviction and sincerity, about the critical need for a more comprehensive, truly bipartisan strategy to win this war on terrorism.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, just yesterday, at the Labour party conference in England admitted to his mistakes with regards to the war in Iraq. We have a president who never apologizes or admits to fallibility. It plays well with some people..perhaps even the majority. Our next president, whoever it may be, must be willing to use force when needed, but must combine the threat with an effort to win the hearts and minds of people around the world because, as we have seen, despite the fact that our troops perform exceedingly well, weaponry alone can't win the war. Terror threats continue to spread.
Mr. President there are so many growing Muslim communities and already they count for nearly 20% of the world's population. So, when Sen. Kerry is lampooned by the President for saying that we need to be more sensitive in our foreign policy aimed at terrorists and potential terrorists, his approach is exactly right. Our president speaks in slogans and bumper stickers; unit er not a divider, shock and awe, good versus evil...you know the litany. It works for him but it certainly is anything but effective in a world that prays for his defeat. There is an exception...IF, and I stress IF the Republicans claim (and many do), that the terrorists of the world inspired and lead by Osama had their druthers hint that they would prefer to have Kerry as president, I'll wager they would much prefer to continue to struggle against George Bush's leadership because, they believe, he causes the youth of much of the Muslim world to despise us to the point of aiding the growth of terrorism.
It is one of the great ironies of this campaign that Mr. Kerry's brave actions of more than 30 years ago continue to dog him, while Mr.Bush has become Teflon Reagan-like in his ability to ignore the questions about his reckless youth. While the Senator may well be preferred by voters who are concerned about the issues, Mr.Bush has a substantial lead on such personal factors as honesty, values and likeability. It is just possible that Mr.Bush's past may have actually worked to his advantage as a sinner saved by prayer; he's now no longer a heavy boozer, he is in fact a Born Again Christian.
I'll be watching, will you? Is it possible that based on the performance and the appearance, you could make up your mind or possibly change your mind. I'd love to hear from you.