Laugh at Yourselves, Candidates!

Saw Al Gore's Demo convention speech tonight and was reminded of Bob Dole appearing on Saturday Night Live after losing the election. After Dole's SNL appearance I remember his supported saying "Why didn't he act like that when he was running?" In an hour and a half, Dole poked fun at himself and others and showed that he wasn't entirely the weird blood-sucking vampire that he appeared to be during his campaign.

Well, same for Gore. Tonight he had a couple of funny lines that I'll paraphrase here. First, he described the Bush economy as being a hard deal and said "I was the first one laid off." That was pretty darned funny, I thought. Then, he followed up by addressing the types of jobs that have been created in recent months as being "not as good as the jobs that were lost." His punchline was, "that applies to me, too."

Without the Presidency on the line, Gore seemed less robotic, more human and not so arrogant. He lost the election because too many Americans thought he was a self-important android and, honestly, during the 2000 campaign, Gore acted like one.

Gore also said that in a Democracy we can hold the President accountable for his mistakes, even if he'll never admit that he made a mistake. This is the big cue for Kerry: be self deprecating from time to time -- laugh at yourself. Dubya is too arrogant to do that. If you take the opposite approach by outlining your qualifications while not denying your foibles, then he'll be the arrogant one. And voters hate an arrogant candidate.

Take the good advice, John Kerry -- don't be another candidate without emotion who doesn't show his true, human self until the election is lost. Don't make us wish the guy on SNL or at the convention four years later, was the guy we saw campaign.