“I’m John Kerry and I’m. . . reporting for duty!”

Remember that line from the Democratic National Convention in 2004?  Remember how excited we all were to have a presidential candidate who’d served in a war and now objected to the Iraq War going up against the chicken-hawk loser administration who got us into this mess?  And remember slowly getting the feeling that his service thirty-plus years ago may well be all he had to offer for the election?

Don’t get me wrong: on substance, there was much I agreed with Senator Kerry about.  And when he spoke, he often pointed out a great many of the contradictions and lies the Bush Administration routinely trotted about.  But it wasn’t like he did it in any cogent, meaningful or effective way.  It wasn’t like he had any particularly bold suggestions of his own.  Any genuinely meaningful differences he had he never articulated in a way that could have resonated, and he didn’t have many in the first place.  Generally, he argued against the nuances of the Bush Adminstration’s policies, but stuck with their general themes and framing.

And now as the 2008 campaign wears on, it seems that John McCain is looking to revise and appropriate Senator Joe Biden’s assesment of Rudy Giuliani, speaking only sentences that contain a noun, a verb and a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.  I’d meant to write up this little post yesterday, and now it looks like Howard Fineman pointed out the danger to McCain on Countdown last night.  He has no particular policy points on which he significantly differs from the President, except for those on which he agrees with Obama.  John Kerry had parasailing, John McCain has an unspecified number of homes he isn’t aware of.  John Kerry was for the war before he was against it, John McCain has. . .  oh, well shit.  Take your pick of lamentable quotes.

I’ve made the point several times in several different ways, here and on other blogs, but I’ll make it again.  Whatever you think of Turd Blossom’s supposed “genius,” or the efficacy of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, elections are never close in this country unless the electorate is either A) bored, like 2000 or B) unimpressed, as in 2004.  Personality issues become important only when there’s either A) nothing else to talk about, as in 2000 or B) nothing being talked about honestly, as in 2004.

It remains to be seen if any substance comes of the 2008 campaign season.  But as sure as eggs is eggs (aching men’s feet), if there is to be genuine substance, it will need to be brought to the table by Barack Obama.  John McCain will not have it in him.  And if Obama choses his substance wisely, I think he can have as much as a six-point lead in the actual final tally, so sure am I that McCain’s support is soft as Velveta and planning on staying home come November.