What does leadership mean?
Please subscribeI think it was Chris Matthews who said voters respond most favorably to the candidate who can best articulate the following simple message:
“Follow me!”
This year, POTUS is the first candidate to articulate the reasons why we should follow him: “Steady leadership in changing times.” Not the precise message that, say, Reagan had (”Stay the course”), but not bad.
The problem for POTUS is that his credibility is shot. People are skeptical because we’ve followed him for four years and the best thing we can say is, “Gee we might’ve been EVEN WORSE off without George W. Bush.” That’s why you keep hearing Bush apologists begin a sentence, “If the Democrats were in charge, Saddam would still be in power,” or “I thank God President Gore wasn’t in charge on 9/11.” That’s pretty weak.
On the Democratic side, Senator Kerry has yet to articulate the reasons why we should follow him. What he has done is similar to POTUS: he’s talked about why we should NOT follow President Bush. Obviously, he can highlight POTUS’ record (”a trail of broken promises”). Although that will energize the base, that’s not going to get him elected. He has to provide a compelling reason to follow him out of this mess. So far, he hasn’t done it.
Stay tuned.
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