Centerfield

He achieves his mandate simply by getting elected. His mandate is to replace Bush. :-)

bk,

That's quite appropriate, since that's all most people who are voting for Kerry want anyway.

Absolutely, it's as true as it is funny. However, it's not much of a proactive rationale for a candidacy, is it?

I'm sure that part of every candidate A's voting total is really a vote for "not candidate B." The real question is, under what circumstances has this had sufficient force to get candidate A elected?

And the subsequent real point is "what positive vision is Kerry successfully getting across that will get him enough votes to beat Bush?" A lot of people are waiting for something like this, and, they feel, not getting it.

And that's where backward reasoning can come in. If you have already decied to vote for Kerry (or for Bush), then you are very likely to cite compelling policy or character reasons even if thois really came AFTER making a choice on a more visceral level.

But for the undecideds, no sale has been made. Bush and Kerry both need to make the sale with those people. These are people that tend to resist making a decision on a visceral level or on dogma.

Darn, everyone beat me to it.

Kerry's "mandate"--I'M NOT BUSH!

And that's it. Sum total of his campaign so far.

At this point in the campaign cycle, both campaigns are attempting to define their opponent in strictly negative terms, to "paint the demon" for their respective bases, as it were. Kerry's problem is that the Dems and the left have been doing that to Bush for over three years, what's going to stick has already stuck, and the paint has pretty well dried. Kerry's not adding anything, just chanting the mantra louder.

On the other hand, Kerry is relatively fresh meat, and the Bush campaign can keep putting on fresh paint for quite a while. First, they'll wait and see what Kerry advances in terms of policies and proposals so they can have more area to paint, and then they'll let the paint dry before they start their own mantra. So it'll be a bit before the Bush campaign goes to simply running on the I'M NOT KERRY platform.

An anti-Bush mandate will give Kerry the presidency and the power to do nothing with it. His presidency will put a halt to where Bush is doing harm, but will prove unable to move the piblic discourse forward and build a national movement for centrist/progressive government.

While a part of this campaign must be run on why George Bush does not deserve four more years at the helm, John Kerry must also build a mandate for himself as the alternative something substantive if his presidency is to be a turning point for America. If the choice for swing voters is between the villian they know and the villian they don't, expect a rush to the safety of familiar faces.

So pick any issue crying for real leadership -- significant tax reform, common-sense budgeting, restructured international cooperation, real entitlement overhaul, public education revolution -- and make your case to the American people. If Rove & Co. can make a tx burden shift from wealth to work look good, certainly Kerry's hired hands can create a movement around his bright ideas.

90% of the voters already have our minds made up, so let me remind you what the remaining 10% are going to decide their vote on: leadership.

Show some leadership, and Kerry has a real shot. People are starting to realize that gutsy, cowboy rhetoric do not a leader make. However, choose to play attack dog and whine about Bush for six months, and the incumbent will walk away with the election and be the only person in politics with a mandate to do anything.

Today, I suspect, President Bush has a better answer to the question Mark Shields asks: "Why do you want to be President." If John Kerry can come up with a better answer to that fundamental question -- an answer he feels in his gut -- he just may win.

I agree with you. I think the country is crying for leadership--they want substance on the issues, yet, neither candidate is willing to take a stand because according to conventional wisdom, that's not how you get elected. Yet, once you get in the White House, you spend at least two years out of your four-year term running for the next election--so the process does not encourage leadership.