Kerry: Pick a Zinger and Ride it to Victory

The noted French thinker François Marie Arouet, better
known as Voltaire, once famously quipped, “a witty saying
proves nothing.”

Suffice it to say that Voltaire’s lifespan, which
stretched from 1694-1778, preceded the media era of American
Presidential politics in which the import of a witty remark, or any
form of the 30-second sound byte, could make or break every major
Presidential candidate.

In 1980, when Americans were fed up with the convoluted and meek
leadership of squeaky-clean Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan captured
public sentiment during a debate when he interrupted yet another
diatribe from the peanut farmer and calmly uttered, “There
you go again.” That cool demeanor helped Reagan’s camp
diffuse the trigger-happy image the incumbent was trying to paint
on Ronny.

Four years later, Reagan, well, there he went again. The country
was quite right to be uncomfortable to give the 73-year-old Great
Communicator four more years, but Reagan again used a pithy one
liner in the Presidential debate to reassure the public. Never mind
the fact that Reagan was soon to be well on his way to
Alzheimer’s; the former actor put the age issue to rest in
the debate when he turned to his opponent, the clearly qualified
former Vice President Walter “Fritz” Mondale, and
delivered perhaps his greatest line ever: “I am not going to
exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and
inexperience.” Even Fritz could not stop himself from joining
in on the laughter.

The story remained the same four years later. Although political
commentators emphasize that the American voter always votes for the
first name on the ballot, and not the second, the 1988 vice
presidential debate nearly stole the show. Dan Quayle faced the
opposite side of the age question that Reagan did. Quayle tried to
quell the debate over his own “youth and inexperience”
by comparing his congressional résumé to that of John
Kennedy in 1960. Without missing a beat, Democratic candidate and
then-Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen told Quayle, “Senator, I
served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a
friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

The audience erupted. Because of that line, Michael Dukakis was
able to have a much better showing on election day than either of
the other old school liberals who have run since 1960, Mondale and
McGovern, despite the fact that the office the vice presidential
candidates were seeking wasn’t, as a former FDR Vice
President John Nance Garner once said, worth a “bucket of
warm piss.”

Can you imagine if Al Gore had not only refrained from
comporting himself like Mr. Smarty Pants, but had also turned to
then Governor George W. Bush, and said, as columnist Joe Klein has
offered up, “Governor Bush, just what do you have against
eight years of peace and prosperity?”

Four years later, going into the first presidential debate of
2004, George W. Bush had the better chance of the two to knock out
his opponent. His campaign had framed the debate for the last few
months, and John Kerry was on the defensive.

But Bush failed in that respect, and since Kerry is now back in
the game, he can use the final debate to find just the right moment
to stick it to the President. Here are some one-liners he should
consider:

“Mr. President, it seems you are the flip-flopper. You say
I am the most liberal member of the senate, but I also take every
side of every issue. You cannot have it both ways. Well, President
Flip-Flop, which is it?”

“Mr. President, you have said you think God has chosen you
for the war on terror. Given all the possibilites God has to choose
from, do you honestly believe he would choose you?”

Or perhaps Bill Maher’s famous line: “Mr. President,
it seems the only war you had an exit strategy for was the Vietnam
War.”

The list could go on, but it’s not my job to stand and
deliver—it’s Kerry’s. It only takes one witty,
original saying that will reach the undecided voters to determine
this election.

I would be happy to give similar advice to the president, but
far be it for him to accept advice from anyone but the Almighty,
let alone take lessons from the French.

See, it’s just that easy.

The author is a Columbia College senior majoring in
history.