Real Surfing
Posted on 09/05/2004 8:46:21 AM PDT by Sarastro
YOU'D think John Kerry could be excused for wanting to spend a summer afternoon on the water.
Instead, David Letterman mocked him for windsurfing instead of campaigning. Jay Leno played the flip-flop card, quipping that even Mr. Kerry's hobby depends on which way the wind blows.
Zell Miller, who could himself be accused of being flip-flopper-in-chief, derided Mr. Kerry's swim trunks as "silly little bicycle pants."
Conservative blogs lumped the windsurfing in with Mr. Kerry's other elite hobbies - skiing, biking, flying between vacation homes. ("He married the all-inclusive package," sneered one posting on freerepublic.com. "EVERYTHING is included.")
Like the helmeted Michael Dukakis peeking out of the tank, or the first George Bush bewildered at the grocery scanner, the photo of Mr. Kerry windsurfing played into the negative stereotype his opponents are trying to play up - in this case, that of the out-of-touch, elitist Massachusetts liberal.
The stereotypes of the sport are unfair - there are lots of plumbers and construction workers windsurfing off Cape Cod and in the lakes of Iowa. (Better put: Who among us doesn't like windsurfing?) "I would have expected it to go over well, the stodgy, overserious guy trying to do something hipper," said Robert J. Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University. "It's not like he was going out having a row with the Harvard crew team."
Still, there was the sense that no one would have mocked Mr. Bush photographed in the same position, even though the two men could have a Zell Miller duel over who has the deeper pedigree. But despite his legacy at Yale and the weekends in Kennebunkport, Me., Mr. Bush manages to pull off the common-man routine without question. Earlier this year when both he and Mr. Kerry were pictured riding top of the line bicycles, and both fell off, Mr. Kerry was the one ridiculed for the expensive bike.
"Often things that they both do still redound to Kerry's disadvantage - the Ivy League education, the biking," said Thomas Frank, author of "What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America." Mr. Frank noted that he had just attended a Republican party at the New York Yacht Club, the varnished-wood redoubt of elitism. "But somehow the image of the yacht really clings to Kerry," he said. "Largely because Republicans have made the stereotype so natural. If a liberal drives an S.U.V., it's the car of the elite, if a Republican drives one it's instantly the car of the common man. They have a whole stereotype that they've spent years building."
Professor Thompson confesses that he does not think it has anything to do with windsurfing, or skiing, or even the mansions. After all, no one made fun of John F. Kennedy for all those yachting photos.
"The thing about windsurfing is, there's wind," he explains. "It blows through your hair. John Kerry looks like a guy who could ride in a convertible with the wind rushing through all that hair, but the truth is, his hair just looks goofy when he's out there on that windsurfer. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it just boils down to the hair." Quick, somebody warn Hillary.
I will tell you why he comes across being a dork - it is becase he is a dork. He wears "gear" to do everthing. If he just wore old worn out clothing to go biking or windsurfing, or whatever, he would come across as ok, but he wears stuff that no normal person would be caught dead in unless you were riding in the tour de france and getting paid a zillion in endorsements. Funny how GW goes jogging in old shorts and a t-shirt just like regular folks. I mean loose cotton clothing is comfortable and all you are going to do is sweat in it. There are very few people in this world I want to see in Spandex, and they are all about 18-22 and female.
Anyone from Kerry's "class" knows that you go boating in old beat up torn up clothing, because if you are doing anything besides waving and smiling your clothing is going to get wet and torn anyway.
And he wasn't going to ruin a $500 hairdo and $3000 worth of designer biking gear when he fell.
If no one comes forward to take credit for that line, I will. It sounds exactly like something I'd say. I might have said it, I just don't remember. I could have been drunk, as I often am when I'm on FR.
Word.
You're too late.
see #58.
Real Surfing
I liked the Leno quip that even FnKerry's hobbies depended on which way the wind blows.
(Ahem. Anyone remember what they said about George Bush's barbecues, brush clearing, cowboy hats, flight suit, etc.?)
Talk about NYT journalists spewing Democrat talking points... this line is almost word for word from Kerry.
Aye, the fact that he pays several hundered dollars to have a french guy do his hair every week is only part of it. :)
I think it depends on what happens. Jeb really has a more outward presentation than George. I've heard him speak. He is very direct. A real man and is gaining experience. Gulianni would be good for a high post not pres. McCain is an opportunist down deep. All of them could beat Hillary.
Hes running out of sports, what next?Running with the bulls?
John Kerry was serious, but he knew how to have fun
Posting the article here...really inspiring...Randall Beach , Register Staff 10/12/2003
Kerry, as a Yale student, and now.
David Thorne says, "I can still feel the hair rising on the back of my neck" as he remembers the day he and his Yale classmate John Kerry were chased through the streets of Pamplona, Spain, by a thundering herd of bulls.While traveling through Europe during a summer break from Yale, Kerry and Thorne impulsively decided to join hundreds of other young men in the traditional "running of the bulls," a macho rite of passage during the town’s annual festival.
"We got into it, took one look at the bulls rounding the corner and John said, ‘Holy Christ! They’re fast!’" Thorne recalled.
"We took off, but we didn’t get very far before the bulls were right there," Thorne said. "I saw this head of horns no more than 10 feet behind me."
And then, he said, Kerry tripped and fell.
But Kerry escaped being trampled because, Thorne said, the bulls ran around him rather than over him.
Thorne told this story to point out that Kerry, now a U.S. senator from Massachusetts and a Democratic candidate for president, does not fit the media stereotype of being "aloof" and "reserved" and "stiff."
I think it depends on what happens. Jeb really has a more outward presentation than George. I've heard him speak. He is very direct. A real man and is gaining experience. Gulianni would be good for a high post not pres. McCain is an opportunist down deep. All of them could beat Hillary.
This article is really off the deep end. It claims that if Bush were in the same position that no one would poke fun. I think that if Bush put on spandex shorts and Rip Curl surfer shirt that the media would have a field day of jokes, me included. Kerry has a semiotic tin ear.
Recall that photo was misreported by the media. GHWB #41 knew what a grocery scanner was. He was being given a demonstration of (then) NEW technology that drastically improved the use of bar codes so that they were more easily read & processed. Everybody (now) knows that the scanning of barcodes in earlier days was sometimes a mixed proposition while, increasingly and, now, today, the scanners are so effective they are easily processed with wands by hand and by quickly moving the items over the scanners, rather than than the peristent problems & difficulties which were inherent in the first generations of that technology (which was why GHWB was impressed, not because he hadn't been to a market in 50 years as the media aided the Clinton campaign in helping to suggest.
The stereotypes of the sport are unfair - there are lots of plumbers and construction workers
What a bunch of bull - straight from Kerry and his campaign. The source for this quote is a line from a recent article when he flew from Iowa to Portland (or vice-versa) to go Windsurfing and was his explanation that these hobbies of his are cheap and readily obtained by the common man. That said, yes, there are plenty of folks doing windsurfing etc. but the line, in this context, is pure spin, not reporting.
the photo of Kerry "windsurfing" is even misleading - HE WAS NOT MOVING.
Once again the plumbers and construction workers are used as examples of the lowest end of the gene pool.
Yeah, maybe it'll blow him right over to Cuba.
Works for me!
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