# Posted 4:52 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY: Josh Benson says that Schwarzenegger was

Charged with saluting a political ideology he doesn't share, praising a president he rarely campaigns with, and, most problematically, embracing a party his home state has abandoned, Schwarzenegger went with what we might call the "middle school civics class approach": He lauded American freedom. He celebrated our hospitality to immigrants. He expressed approval that we are not socialists. It was, in the end, a gauzy paean to American triumphalism--ready-made for delivery for most, if not all, political conventions congregating this summer.

As OxBlog said, the speech was shopworn and predictable. However, all of Arnold's talk about free enterprise made me ask, "Did Kerry or Edwards say anything good about free markets in their speeches?" Well, sort of. Kerry said:

Here at home, wages are falling, health care costs are rising, and our
great middle class is shrinking. People are working weekends; they're working two jobs, three jobs, and they're still not getting ahead.

We're told that outsourcing jobs is good for America. We're told that
new jobs that pay $9,000 less than the jobs that have been lost is the best we can do. They say this is the best economy we've ever had. And they say that anyone who thinks otherwise is a pessimist. Well, here is our answer: There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can't do better.

Again and again, Kerry emphasizes the plight of the worker and the dangers of the marketplace, not the ingenuity of the entrepreneur and the opportunities inherent in a free market.

I don't think Kerry's emphasis is wrong. My natural sympathies lie with those whom the market has left behind. But is it any wonder that all those millions of Americans who are enchanted by the free markets and unprecendented opportunities vote Republican?

What does it mean in America today when Dave McCune, a steel worker I met in Canton, Ohio, saw his job sent overseas and the equipment in his factory literally unbolted, crated up, and shipped thousands of miles away along with that job? What does it mean when workers I've met had to train their foreign replacements?

America can do better. So tonight we say: help is on the way...

What does it mean when Deborah Kromins from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania works and saves all her life only to find out that her pension has disappeared into thin air – and the executive who looted it has bailed out on a golden parachute?

America can do better. And help is on the way...

What does it mean when people are huddled in blankets in the cold,
sleeping in Lafayette Park on the doorstep of the White House itself – and the number of families living in poverty has risen by three million in the last four years?

America can do better. And help is on the way...

Again and again, Kerry reinforces the image of the Democratic Party as the party of the victim. Is it any wonder that the optimism of the average American benefits the GOP? Even Kerry's insistence that "help is on the way" suggests that Americans ought to wait for help (from the government?) rather then depend on their own hard-work and ingenuity.

We value jobs that pay you more not less than you earned before. We
value jobs where, when you put in a week's work, you can actually pay your bills, provide for your children, and lift up the quality of your life. We value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed, but doing better...

So much promise stretches before us. Americans have always reached for the impossible, looked to the next horizon, and asked: What if?

Two young bicycle mechanics from Dayton asked what if this airplane could take off at Kitty Hawk? It did that and changed the world forever. A young president asked what if we could go to the moon in ten years? And now we're exploring the solar system and the stars themselves. A young generation of entrepreneurs asked, what if we could take all the information in a library and put it on a little chip the size of a fingernail? We did and that too changed the world forever.

Finally, a reference to entrepreneurs. It is interesting, though, that this lone reference is embedded within Kerry's paean to science. I think the optimism of the Democratic parties has always been more technological than that of the Republicans. What brings progress is science, not businessmen competing in the marketplace.

Now here's Edwards:

I grew up in a small town in rural North Carolina. My father worked in a mill all his life, and I will never forget the men and women who worked with him. They had lint in their hair and grease on their faces. They worked hard and tried to put a little something away every week so their kids and their grandkids could have a better life. They are just like the auto workers, office workers, teachers, and shop keepers on Main Streets all across America...

I have spent my life fighting for the kind of people I grew up with.
For two decades, I stood with families and children against big HMOs and big insurance companies. And as a Senator, I fought those same fights against the Washington lobbyists and for causes like the Patients’ Bill of Rights...

Edwards derives his authenticity from the fact that his father was a mill worker. Instead of talking about his own success as a legal entrepreneur, he describes his career as one of representing victims in the struggle against the corporations that have harmed them.

We can create good paying jobs in America again. Our plan will stop
giving tax breaks to companies that outsource your jobs. Instead, we will give tax breaks to American companies that keep jobs here in America. And we will invest in the jobs of the future—in the technologies and innovation to ensure that America stays ahead of the competition...

Tonight, as we celebrate in this hall, somewhere in America, a mother sits at the kitchen table. She can’t sleep. She’s worried because she
can’t pay her bills. She’s working hard to pay the rent and feed her
kids. She’s doing everything right, but she still can’t get ahead.

It didn’t use to be that way in her house. Her husband was called up in the Guard and he’s been serving in Iraq for more than a year. She thought he’d be home last month, but now he’s got to stay longer.

She thinks she’s alone. But tonight in this hall and in your homes—you know what? She’s got a lot of friends. We want her to know that
we hear her. And it’s time to bring opportunity and an equal chance to her door.

We’re here to make America stronger at home so she can get ahead. And we’re here to make America respected in the world so that we can bring him home and American soldiers don’t have to fight the war in Iraq and the war on terror alone.

So when you return home, you might pass a mother on her way to work the late-shift—you tell her……hope is on the way.

When your brother calls and says that he’s working all the time at the
office and still can’t get ahead—you tell him……hope is on the way.

The similarity of Kerry and Edwards' speeches is remarkable. Once again, the main rhetorical devices is the description of numerous individuals personal suffering. Moreover, Edwards emphasizes that American can't get ahead inspite of their hard work and presumable ingenuity. Then, towards the close of his speech, Edwards says that

We are Americans and we choose to be inspired. We choose hope over despair; possibilities over problems, optimism over cynicism.

Edwards, like Kerry insists that he is the true optimist and that the Democratic party is the true party of optimism. Yes, but of a certain kind. It the optimism that comes from believing that a compassionate government can help this nation's many victims. It is not the optimism that comes from believing that the people themselves have the answers.

Again, I don't mean that as criticism. I do believe that even the fairest marketplace has its victims. I believe that government has an ethical obligation to help and that Republican administration's often don't. But if the Democrats can only talk about markets as places of fear, is it any surprise that so many Americans are drawn to the GOP?
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