ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 28, 2004

BOSTON - - I am not saying that Tuesday night at the Democratic Convention was the most electrifying or informative in the history of politics.

I am saying it was more electrifying and informative than “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” “Last Comic Standing,” “Navy NCIS” and “Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy.”

But that is what the commercial TV networks brought us instead of covering even one second of the convention.

The networks are barely covering the convention at all. They are broadcasting just one live hour a night for three nights. Tuesday night, they broadcast nothing live at all.

I think that is embarrassing. Especially considering the tripe they are broadcasting instead.

How embarrassing is it? This embarrassing: According to the Boston Herald, the Arab news network, al Jazeera, “is airing more live prime-time broadcasting” of the Democratic convention “each night than the major commercial American networks.” Al Jazeera, according to the newspaper, is broadcasting 90 minutes of the convention each night.

Why is al Jazeera doing so? According to the network’s spokesperson, Stephanie Thomas, “This convention is particularly relevant, both to our Middle Eastern and our American audiences.”

American networks apparently do not think a presidential nominating convention is “particularly relevant” to their American audiences, however.

But wait, you say, some of the networks have cable outlets that are covering the convention a lot more, right?

Yeah, but examine the difference in audience size: According to Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, the combined prime-time viewing audience for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox is 30 million. The combined prime-time viewing audience for the cable and satellite channels (PBS, CNN, Fox News Channel, CNBC, MSNBC and MTV) is 6.6 million.

And there is something else to consider. “Those who select one of these cable or satellite channels or seek convention coverage on the Internet are already politically interested and committed,” Gans said. “Those who watch only the networks are the general public. It is the general public that needs to be engaged and informed.”

I am not faulting the news operations of the commercial networks. You can bet the news operations wanted to cover the conventions. But the money people at the networks did not. And that is because they know they can make a lot more money bringing the public “reality” programming instead of the reality of the nominating conventions.

But the public doesn’t want to watch! the money people say. And we have low ratings from past years to prove it.

To which I say: Who cares? You were granted broadcast licenses by the government to provide a public service, not just make money hand over fist. And by refusing to meet your public service obligations, you deny those members of the public who do want to be informed the ability to get the information they want and need.

The same networks that broadcast every lap of 500-lap auto races could not bring us a single second of a convention on a night during which Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Barack Obama, Ron Reagan, and Teresa Heinz Kerry all spoke.

It is shameful.

And you would think that American TV networks would be just a little embarrassed that if American citizens want to really watch American democracy in action, they would be better off watching al Jazeera.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 26, 2004

WASHINGTON - - For most of American history, presidential nominees never went to political conventions. They stayed away from the baking-hot, smoke-filled auditoriums, remaining unsullied and above it all, usually at home, while waiting to be “notified” of their good fortune. Then they were supposed to act surprised.

While the notification tradition may have been dignified, it robbed the many thousands assembled at the convention halls of seeing and hearing the candidate.

But Franklin Roosevelt pronounced the tradition absurd and decided to fly to Chicago in 1932 to accept his nomination in person and to prove that he was not, as advertising man Bruce Barton had called him, “just a name and a crutch.” (Friends begged Roosevelt not to risk his life in a “flying machine,” but he made the long flight from Albany to Chicago anyway and while his son, John, emerged looking green, FDR looked invigorated.)

Roosevelt drove a nail in the coffin of the notification tradition by telling the delegates and all those listening by radio, “You have nominated me and I know it!”

Harry Truman was not sure in 1948 whether he should continue the FDR tradition, but in the end Truman decided he had to go to the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia and make a speech. “The Democratic party was dispirited and dejected. I meant to give them something to cheer about and something to campaign for,” Truman wrote in his memoirs.

Now that conventions are just long TV commercials for the political parties, the acceptance speech is just about the only excitement left.

So I asked some prominent Democrats what John Kerry has to accomplish with his speech and what advice they would give him just before he walked out on stage.

Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee: “What John Kerry has to show is his vision and the specifics of how he will get the economy moving again, fix health care and education and convince the American public - - which will not be hard to do - - that John Kerry will keep us safer at home and more secure. There is a huge opportunity to show the American public they are not safer today than four years ago, and Kerry has the opportunity to show how he will make us safer and stronger.

“With the electorate so evenly divided, he needs to reach out to everyone. He has a huge opportunity from a political point of view to reach the truly swing voters. And there is a percentage of the Republican base who thinks now they will vote for Bush, but after this convention they will decide they really want to vote for John Kerry.”

Last piece of advice: “John, go out there and light ‘em up, pump ‘em up, and give a hopeful and optimistic message to all Americans!”

Joe Lockhart, White House Press Secretary for Bill Clinton: “Conventions generally have multiple political tasks, but Sen. Kerry is already ahead of the game. He has already picked his vice president and the choice works. There are going to be no Dan Quayle or Tom Eagleton controversies.

”So Kerry has the single task of introducing himself as the nominee of the party and offering a clear and alternative vision to George Bush’s America. He has to say: ‘This is John Kerry and this is my vision.’ On the one hand, that’s easy, but this is a big moment and there is no take two. He has got to get it right. And there is no reason to believe that he won’t.

“People who decide elections - - those in the middle - - will watch his speech with an open mind and this is the point at which they will make their decision. They can change their minds, events happen, there will be the debates, but this is the one moment he gets to speak directly to the American public without the media filter, without partisan sniping, and it is an enormous opportunity and enormously important because you don’t get second chance.

“There won’t be harsh rhetoric concerning the president, but there will be an accounting of his record. Those who genuinely haven’t made up their minds will see something in John Kerry they can support.”

Last piece of advice: “Tell them why you want to be president.”

Anita Dunn, Democratic strategist and communications director for Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign: “The convention is that first handshake with the vast majority of Americans who don’t pay attention to the presidential nominating process. So Kerry must lay out where he will lead the country. There are very few moments where the national community is focused on politics. This is one of them.

“This is the opportunity for people to learn about John Kerry. Most people have no idea that he was a prosecutor. Many will be surprised to learn he is a veteran. This lack of information should not be underestimated. Most people would be surprised to learn the president once owned a baseball team!

”A successful convention presents an agenda in a compelling fashion.The speech is when all the elements come together. The convention itself sets a tone and the speech is where Kerry personally ties all the pieces of the four-day convention together. It is an exercise in repetition, in themes, and in illustrating a story.”

Last piece of advice: “Be yourself.”

Jeremy Ben-Ami, policy director for the Howard Dean campaign: “This is John Kerry’s debut. He has to connect with people on issues that matter in their day-to-day lives. I’d urge him to focus on the middle-class squeeze theme that he introduced a couple of weeks ago: that Democrats offer real help on healthcare, childcare, and the cost of college. And he should contrast that with the Republican tax-cuts for the wealthy.”

Last piece of advice: “Stick to the script!”

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 21, 2004

WASHINGTON - - Some weeks ago I interviewed Gina Glantz, who was the national campaign manager for Bill Bradley in 2000 and the national field director for Walter Mondale in 1984. In December, 2003, Glantz joined the Howard Dean campaign as a senior adviser. It was her job to stick close to the candidate and offer her wisdom and counsel. (For more on this see U.S. News & World Report, the July 19-26 issue, on the stands now.)

Me: When did you realize things were not going well in the Dean campaign?
Glantz: After I had been on the campaign about a week, 10 days, I said to Joe (Trippi, the campaign manager) "Something is wrong". I didn't know what exactly, because it was more a gut feeling as the result of having been in Iowa and having won in Iowa and lost in Iowa. There was just something about the crowds. It didn't feel like the heavy energy that the Dean campaign was known to have.

Me: U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (who endorsed Dean) told me the Dean crowds in Iowa were often made up of non-Iowans, who apparently were being bused from speech to speech.
Glantz: Increasingly the crowds had fewer Iowans and more outsiders, right. And by the time we got to the end, I would look around the room and say, “Well, who is an Iowan in the room?”

Me: Do you think Dean knew?
Glantz: Dean's a very smart guy. He's a good, intuitive politician. And I believe he understood at some level when he stood in front of those crowds that something was slipping away.

Me: Why wasn’t anything done to fix things?
Glantz: The campaign was incapable of taking any action to try to correct, what I think everyone understood, were problems. It wasn't that there was anyone who was naively sitting back and saying, "Everything is going well in Iowa". Some of us wanted Joe (Trippi) to go out to Iowa, as the ultimate mastermind. He resisted because he thought somehow there would be a coup back in Vermont. It just wasn't so. But the leadership of the Dean campaign absolutely knew it was in trouble.

Me: I understand some felt there were message as well as mechanical problems with the campaign.
Glantz: The campaign became very enamored with its message of "You have the power," which is a very important message and I don't in any way mean to diminish it or belittle it. But I think it had a certain staleness after a while because Dean kept speaking to the same set of people. "You have the Power" does not put food on your table.
In the end people moved on from “Who really instills in me a sense of excitement” to “Who do I think can govern?” And at the end, we didn't give them the answers to the governing questions, although Dean had terrific answers, in my view. He had governed. He had a vision for how he wanted to govern. I made the suggestion and it was rejected that we go back and re-establish why people were for him. He was a doctor, who could deliver healthcare. There was something to him and his profile that made him capable of leading the country. But there was a decision just to keep riding the "movement" message rather than the “governing” message.

Me: And that didn’t work.
Glantz: What Dean had to say about the war was really thoughtful and what he had done about health care and what he wanted to do was really impressive. But at the end nobody knew that about him any more. I mean, I wonder if in some ways he didn't become a caricature of himself

Me: What about the “scream” speech?
Glantz: It wasn’t really a scream; we all know that. But I think in part it was the speech that Joe wanted him to give because it was really about the movement. And then Harkin really egged him on during it as well. Dean is an amazingly steady person in some ways. And (losing badly in Iowa) was a terrible thing to go through. You have come so far, worked so hard, and are feeling a tremendous responsibility to the people who had been with him, given to him. He always felt a responsibility to them and I always will give him credit for that.

Me: What did you learn about him?
Glantz: One of the reasons I like him is that he called his family every day. He had to kind of do it in front of us, because we’d be in some little van and there wasn’t any privacy. But there was clearly a warmth and a genuine family strength there. It was very real.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 19, 2004

WASHINGTON - - A few weeks ago, I went to Des Moines to interview Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack for a long piece I was doing on the Iowa caucuses and why most of us in the media got the story wrong. (See U.S. News & World Report, July 19-26 issue, on the stands now.) Below is a portion of that interview:

Me: John Edwards came in a surprising second in the Iowa caucuses. Why do you think he did so well, when most of us in the media had written him off?
Vilsack: John Edwards, basically, did something very, very bright and very, very wise in terms of his approach. He realized he didn't have labor; he realized he wasn't going to get veterans or the people that Kerry was going to get. So who was he going to get? Well, he was going to get those 25 to 30 percent of all Democrats who believe that the world would be better if candidates just basically talked positively and hopefully and optimistically and never talked negatively about anybody. Okay? They are the folks who hate negative advertising; they're the folks who are idealists; they're the folks who are purists, and John Edwards decided, hey, this is a group that nobody is speaking to and, boy, they thought, this is our guy! Presto!

Me: John Kerry, who won Iowa, also surprised many in the media. He didn’t have a lot of labor support, but he had the firefighters union. Why was this so important to his victory in Iowa?
Vilsack: Well, I was the mayor of a small town (Mount Pleasant) and this is the reason I'm so sensitive to this: I was mayor for, I don't know, a couple of months and my phone rings at home at night. We had a law office, a family law practice, and it was next to the Chamber of Commerce building. Well, the Chamber of Commerce building for some reason caught fire, so the guys called me and said the building next to your law office is on fire and you might want to come down, you know, check it out.
So, I'm standing there on the corner and the flames are shooting out - - I'll never forget this - - shooting out of this building, out of the window and these guys are climbing up on this ladder into that building with the flames shooting out and I thought to myself, "My God, these guys get paid ten bucks a month! And they're putting their life on the line to, you know, to save my law books!” And I thought, "These guys are really something.”
I walk across the state every year and I stop at these small communities that will never see a governor, never. Every single one of them has got a volunteer fire department. Every single one of them. I get introduced to the fire chief, you know, and I ask, "How many people you got? "Well I got 10-11 guys." "What kind of equipment?" “Well we've got this old 1950 pumper truck, you know, and we're really proud of it, we've maintained it you know.” They're very important people. They really allow these small communities to survive and I think somehow Kerry understood that and that was a very shrewd thing on his part.

Me: Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt had the most union support and they finished third and fourth in Iowa. Is the power of organized labor on the wane?
Vilsack: I think labor's power is still there, but I think in order for it to be fully appreciated and fully effective it has to be a bottom-up instead of a top-down process. In other words, if Howard Dean was going to get AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) support he really needed to do it sort of the way I did it, which was to talk to the rank and file folks first and have them convince the folks at the top.
I think what happened was that (the top) people looked at Dean's money-raising capacity and thought, "My God, this guy's found a silver bullet here, he can do it!” And, indeed, he did find a silver bullet which was pretty important but it obviously wasn’t enough.
So I think labor's clout is still there, but in Iowa we don't take orders very well; we're an independent-minded folk here. But I still think labor could be very effective on Election Day (in November.) Gore won by 4,000 votes last time and labor's a big reason why he won Iowa and why he won Wisconsin by a slim margin. So, I think they're still very important to the process but it's got to be bottom-up, not top-down.

Me: Did Kerry get better as a campaigner as he campaigned in Iowa?
Vilsack: If you look in people's eyes and you look into their hearts, then you can convey it more effectively on the stump. And I think that's what happened to Kerry in Iowa and I think that the sad thing about presidential campaigns from Iowa on, or New Hampshire on, is that they have little opportunity for that.
You’re in a jet; you fly to one place; you stand in front of a bunch of microphones or in front of some beautiful setting with 5,000 people, you give a speech and on you go.
Kerry's a kind of interesting and thoughtful guy and that’s one of the reasons why he every once in while wants to break away from that process just to get on his motorcycle and ride around an airport parking lot: He wants to re-connect with real life.
I mean, what candidates go through is not real life. It's not even close to real life. And so that's why, I think, that why it's important to have a process like the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary so you can have that connection.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 14, 2004

WASHINGTON - - Not long ago, I interviewed John Kerry for a piece I was doing on the Iowa caucuses, where Kerry scored a surprise victory. Many now believe this single event made him the Democratic nominee. (See U.S. News & World Report, July 19-26 issue, on the stands now.) Below is a portion of that interview:

Me: When you won Iowa, you called yourself “Comeback Kerry.” What did you mean by that? What were you coming back from?
Kerry: Well, there was a media perception that the campaign was written off. People had all but handed the nomination to Howard Dean. We had to win Iowa or come in a very strong second. Winning was going to be better, but if I had come in second I still could have won the nomination. But it was going to be better to win and I decided to go and try to do it.

Me: At the beginning of 2003, you were considered the front-runner. Was that a plus or a minus?
Kerry: You don’t control whether you are front-runner or not. If you have a huge crowd you take the crowd and build.

Me: But soon it all changed and you were far down in the polls.
Kerry: What we couldn’t control was the war in Iraq. Basically I was moving very effectively and very well until the war in Iraq stopped the debate and changed the dynamic. It just didn’t matter what you were doing and what you said, there was just one angry topic. Dean didn’t have to vote on the war and he moved in and created a different dynamic.

Me: But, according to exit polls, you eventually won the anti-war vote in Iowa.
Kerry: We did. I think we managed to meet people and talk to people and explain to people and time began to give people an opportunity to make judgments about why I voted the way I did and what my character was and they trusted my position. They came to understand it and trust it.

Me: How important was getting Christie Vilsack’s endorsement? (Christie Vilsack is the wife of Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.)
Kerry: I think that Christie Vilsack’s contribution to the campaign was very significant and sort of crystallized a great energy across the state. What she did was help legitimize what was happening and put a public face on it at a key moment.

Me: How important was the support of the firefighters’ union to your victory in Iowa? (Kerry was endorsed by the International Association of Firefighters in September, 2003.)
Kerry: All of the ingredients were important. A campaign is a series of events and a series of communications, and a series of images, all cumulative. The firefighters were one of most prominent and visible of those events and I think it had an impact. They just didn’t endorse and that was it. They actually did stuff. They were there, they were present, they worked, they fought.

Me: When you were at a low ebb, down in the polls, down in fundraising, how did you get through it?
Kerry: We laughed a lot. We’d laugh at ourselves. We vented occasionally. But we had to go out and make breaks and make the fight. It was tiring and challenging, but exciting.

Me: Were you confident of victory?
Kerry: We had a confidence. I had an inner confidence. I could see people shifting, I could see things the media couldn’t. I was pretty confident, one foot in front of the other, steady as you go. I had a confidence that we would start to move the thing.

Me: Tell me about the importance of Michael Whouley.
Kerry: He’s a very skilled, incredibly disciplined and capable operative. He works quietly behind the scenes like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. He is the Magical Mr. Mistoffelees. He can organize. He is calm and steady and knows where you are and he knows how to count. It is good to have people around who know how to count! If it doesn’t look good, my people know to say, “We’ve got a problem.” And we had a few of those conversations early on. “What do we do? How do we fix it?”

Me: Did you dramatically improve as a campaigner in Iowa?
Kerry: I campaigned the way I campaigned throughout my campaigns. Historically as a campaign comes into its final months, people pay more attention and your own focus and energy shifts into a higher gear. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. You pace it. The bottom line is that what I was talking about mattered to people. That broke through.

Me: If elected, will you safeguard Iowa’s first-caucus-in-the-nation status?
Kerry: I think that is a pretty good assumption.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 12, 2004

WASHINGTON - - A few weeks ago, I went to Burlington, Vt., to interview Howard Dean for a long piece I was doing on the Iowa caucuses, where Dean lost badly. (See U.S. News & World Report, July 19-26 issue, on the stands now.) Below is a portion of that interview:

Me: What went wrong in Iowa?
Dean: I can't tell you because I don't know Iowa. I know a lot about New England and I know a lot about how to run primary elections. I knew nothing about how to run caucuses so I just left that to everybody else, who had a lot of experience running caucuses and to this day I don't know what happened.
Kerry ran a great campaign, I don't think we should take anything away from John Kerry. I mean, there was this sustained, persistent campaign. And Edwards ran a great campaign. And Gephardt and I did not run great campaigns. And that's the way it was.

Me: You were being told right up to the end you were going to win Iowa. What happened to all your voters?
Dean: At some point after November I'll figure out what went wrong with the count. That kind of stuff is worth doing. There's a million reasons (I lost): Edwards got endorsed by the Des Moines Register; Kerry ran a terrific campaign in the last three weeks, I mean there are million things. Every campaign makes huge mistakes, every one of them. And the losers have to chose which mistake did them in and the winners get absolved of all of them. And so, you know, what is to be gained by all this? There's nothing to be gained by "kiss and tell" articles blaming people inside the campaign, which is why I don't get into that because everybody has made mistakes in every campaign, so what's the point in singling people out?
And there's nothing to be gained by going back and saying, "Well, if I had only done this, and if I had only done that" because, you, you know, "There but for the grace of God go I". A lot of its momentum. And you know we don't have a lot of control about that. I mean, we could go through and have 10 theories about why John Kerry won and why we lost, and one of those theories would be right but we don't know which one and we're never going to know.

Me: But you must have some regrets.
Dean: The one thing I really regret for the sake of the country, not for the campaign, is not asking Judy (Dean’s wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg) to come out earlier. Because after she came out we got tons of mail from women saying, “Oh, my God, I didn't have any realization that a normal person could actually do this; you're a great inspiration to us.” And that I thought was great. And she was, of course, much better at it than I ever imagined her to be and she liked it, much to my astonishment. She's never going to give up her medical practice to do this, unless I win some day.

Me: You don’t rule out running for president again.
Dean: Certainly not. I hope I won’t have to think about that until 2012. And I’m not going to think about it at all until November. I want Kerry to win in the worst way.

Me: When you were running, were you trying to run a movement or become president of the United States?
Dean: In the beginning, I said the three things I wanted to do are change the Democratic Party, change the country, and become President of the United States.

Me: In that order?
Dean: That's the order I always said.

Me: Did you succeed?
Dean: I don't think we're going to know whether we succeeded - - well, I'm obviously not going to become President of the United States in 2004 - - but the other two we don't know whether we succeeded or not. If John Kerry doesn't win, we haven't changed the country. And we may or may not have changed the Democratic Party, we have in the short term, but whether we have in the long term or not, we'll have to see.
And, you know, this instrument is called the retrospective-scope that we're using.

Me: And where is the retrospective-scope inserted?
Dean: It depends on who you're using it on.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 7, 2004

SIMON SAYS:
What on earth did they do to the back of the nickel? It looks like two guys shaking hands over a pair of golf clubs. What's it supposed to be? A tribute to Ben Hogan?

Strange but True: Nobody has ever seen Ralph Nader smile.

John Kerry made the safest, least controversial choice he could for his running mate. Which raises the question: Can he win the presidency by always making the safest, least controversial choice?

I have persuaded myself that Reese's Peanut Butter Cups contain all seven major food groups.

Did you know you are not supposed to use your cell phone while filling your car at a gas station? There, I have saved your life.

Are there any children in the world more screwed up than the children of psychiatrists?

Admit it: Most new, fake diners are nicer than the old, real dinners ever were.

Kudos to ABC's Nightline for finally doing a story that was Chicago-centric rather than New York-centric or Washington-centric and for establishing that Chicago's Vienna hot dogs are far superior to the East Coast's Hebrew National hot dogs. (And while we are on the subject, what does 'kudos' actually mean?)

Nobody writes love letters any more. Love IMs are just not the same.

People who sleep on foam pillows rather than down pillows don't know what they're missing.

People who crack their gum should be beaten with sticks.

The sexiest color for women's underwear is still white.

I don't understand artichokes. I mean, what's the point?

In real life, as opposed to the movies, I have never seen a judge bang his gavel.

Been reading a lot of stories about how Ohio is a critical battleground state that may determine the outcome of the presidential election? I doubt it. I think Ohio-as-battleground is a Republican head-fake, an attempt to get John Kerry to waste time and money on a state he cannot win. Not a single Democrat holds a non-judicial statewide office in Ohio and while I don't know if George W. Bush will be re-elected or not, I'll bet you he wins Ohio.

I know it's irrational, but five digit street addresses really bother me.

Does anybody remember the TV show “You Asked For It?” If you answered yes, you must be really old.

Neighbors never just drop by on each other any more. Thank goodness.

There is nothing more complicated than a hotel alarm clock.

If you don't live near a Wegmans, you should do something about that immediately.

I really liked the Ying Yang Twins' “What's Happenin' ” video until I looked up the lyrics on Google. Sometimes it is much better not to understand the lyrics. (And while we're on the subject, can anybody really tell me the difference between rap and hip-hop?)

I remain unconvinced that birds actually like birdbaths.

John Edwards’s biggest problem is how to make the case that he really is “ready from day one” to be president. As a first-term senator, doesn’t he have more national security and foreign policy experience than George W. Bush did when he was elected? Sure. But Bush was elected before Sept. 11. Today, Bush probably could not get elected with the credentials he had then. But now the Bush-Cheney ticket will try to sell itself as the “strength” ticket made up of two men who have seen this country through crisis and war. Think they haven’t figured out how to attack Edwards? On the day after Edwards was selected, Bush was asked how Cheney matched up against Edwards. And Bush replied: “Dick Cheney can be president.”

Wouldn’t it be cool if somebody had a garage sale and actually sold his garage?