The Associated Press is offering some advice to Kerry and Nader about the tone of the campaign:
As John Kerry and Ralph Nader compete for votes in their common cause of beating President Bush, they risk coming across not just as agents of change, but as Glum and Glummer.
The America that John Kerry sees is weighted by millions of job losses, millions of people without health insurance, a "wage recession" for those who do have work, schools begging for money, exploding gas prices and "poisoned" alliances worldwide.Then there's the America that Ralph Nader sees. It's in really bad shape.
He talks about foul air, impure food, 13 million hungry children, corporate domination, "mindless" SAT scores "controlling our definition of intelligence," kids who need love being put on antidepressants instead, corrupt political parties, a government that hasn't had a good idea in 30 years, and a president who acts like an "out-of-control, West Texas sheriff."
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Opponents of an incumbent president need to tell people what's wrong, so they don't just re-elect him, but must do so in a way that does not sink their spirits, say students of political rhetoric. And Kerry's indictment of Bush fills many of his speeches on the stump.
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"You have to be optimistic and hopeful," she says, "without being happy with the way things are going."
Ronald Reagan personified the upbeat, his vision of morning in America attractive even to many with a hard life. Bill Clinton, the "man from Hope," couched his criticisms of the first President Bush's economic record with an infectious, can-do-better energy.
"The message that gets out to the public in digested form can't be, 'everything's wrong,'" Jamieson said. "It has to be, 'I'm optimistic about what change I can produce.'"
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