John Kerry Under the Microscope

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The only thing remotely sexy about presidential hopeful John Kerry is that his name is not George W. Bush. Though the man currently occupying the White House is about as arousing to American college students and anyone outside the United States as milk-gone-bad, a prolonged taste of Kerry isn't giving anyone orgasms either.

Instead of appealing to young, on-campus voters by hyping the need to make college more affordable or snatching democracy from the corporations and giving it back to the people, John Kerry is delivering his same, generic speech on his Campus Tour 2004 -- promoting tax-code reform, outsourcing, Social Security, and Medicare, writes The Village Voice's Anya Kamenetz. 'No candidate would go to a senior center and give a lecture about Head Start. Why, then, bring college students to a speech at the 'Harvard of the poor,' only to address the concerns of the middle-aged middle class?' asks Kamenetz, who interviewed several first-time voters looking for a reason, any reason, to vote for Kerry in November.

The World Press Review's compilation of reports on Kerry from all over the world echoes the bored sentiment of American's youth. Luis Fernando Verissimo of the O Globo, a centrist newspaper in Rio de Janeiro (where they definitely know what's sexy!), writes: '[Kerry's] thoughts are slow and his speeches are notoriously unexciting. His biggest claim to fame might be that he has the same initials and is from the same political base (Boston) as John Fitzgerald Kennedy ... Aside from the fact that a romp against Bush by anybody would make the whole world a safer place ... Kerry doesn't impress us all that much.' Meanwhile, Soledad Loaeza of the left-wing Mexican paper La Jornada laments that 'electability' is the only word with any punch for the Democrats this year.
-- Jacob Wheeler

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