Rocket Man has periodically expressed interest here about John Kerry’s exhibitionist approach to sports. Kerry snowboarding (with the classic daisy zipper pull), Kerry biking (with the fully color coordinated bike/shorts/gloves/helmet combo), Kerry playing catch on the tarmac of various airports — what’s the deal with the guy?
Well, just for a reminder, we post the photo below that initially prompted us to meditate on Kerry’s extreme sports statement, whatever it is. I’m not sure we can elaborate much beyond the weirdness on display.
Now comes ABC’s Teddy Davis, who has posted a report that sheds some light on the situation, but that raises even more questions regarding the judgment involved here: “Kerry on a roll — but risks remain.”
It appears that Kerry’s carefully wrought public sports poses are calculated to prove his manhood! I guess I must have been thrown off by the daisy zipper pull:
Throughout his campaign, Kerry has made it clear that he is not ready to cede to President Bush what Steve Rosenthal, the former political director of the AFL-CIO, once called “the hang test.”
So whether it’s been shooting pheasant, playing hockey, tossing a football, or riding a Harley, Kerry has been presented to the public as fun-loving, athletic, outdoorsy, and, most importantly, the kind of Democrat who crosses the “testosterone threshold” needed to be commander-in-chief.
But the exotic nature of some of the sports he plays (say, kite-surfing in Nantucket) and the great lengths he goes in order to play them (say, flying from Idaho to Oregon to windsurf), can have the unintended effect of making him seem out of touch with the hard-pressed middle class whose cares he says have been his concern.
As his plane was flying from Oregon to Idaho on Saturday, Kerry defended his taste in sports, saying, “The guys who do it are all local guys — plumbers, construction workers.”
Asked if these regular folks fly from one state to another, the husband of the condiment heiress downplayed the cost, saying, “What? 250 bucks for a ticket?”
Kerry, incidentally, is the candidate for president of the party that holds itself out as the tribune of the people. (Courtesy of — who else? — Hugh Hewitt.)
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