It’s summer, which means an insipid yet strangely irresistible new pop song should soon find its way onto radio stations across America, where it will be played over and over until we all begin numbly bobbing our heads to the beat. The press corps, for its part, debuted what seems to be destined to become its summer single today. And since journalists all over the country follow The New York Times like enraptured children tumbling after the Pied Piper, you can count on it catching on.
Throughout the spring, John Kerry was portrayed by the campaign press, The Times included, as a man struggling to find himself, a development that had (mostly anonymous) Democrats worried. It was a sobering thought: a 32-year veteran of public affairs suddenly forgetting who he is and what he stands for, searching for an identity like an idealistic college sophomore laid up in an Amsterdam hostel. But now, it seems, Kerry has had his eureka moment, at least according to The Times. All of a sudden, says Robin Toner, Kerry’s quest is over; he’s a man with a message. And what is that message?
Ummmm … resolute middle-of-the-roadism. What Kerry stands for, Toner opines, is a Clintonian combination of “reducing the deficit, spurring economic growth, and trying to ease ‘the squeeze on middle-class America.'”
As we all know, candidates from both the left and the right slide closer to the center once a general election campaign kicks in, but Toner detects a newly coherent vision in Kerry’s recent rhetoric on foreign policy, “values,” and health care, among other issues.
Has Kerry really changed his rhetoric? Or is it The Times that has changed its rhetoric about Kerry? The strength and clarity of a candidate’s message, after all, is subjective, and so stories like this one must be met with skepticism. But now that the Kerry-has-found-his-message premise has been debuted, complete with The Times‘ seal of approval, expect to see said premise soon bouncing off the walls of the campaign press echo chamber. And bouncing. And bouncing.
Yes, we think we hear this summer’s song; now just try to not nod your head too often.
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.