The Call of the Bratwurst

Ever get a gnawing, rumbling, grumbling feeling in your stomach, like when the bratwurst with onions, ketchup and mustard that tasted so great at the ballpark a few hours ago starts haunting you on your way home?

I'm beginning to feel that way about John Kerry.

The New York Times, which despite its great faults frequently quotes people accurately, ran a story Friday about how the Presumptive Democratic Party Nominee gave a speech to what the paper said were “wealthy and well-connected supporters.” Wrote the Times' Jodi Wilgoren:

“Declaring that he is 'not a redistribution Democrat,' Senator John Kerry told a group of wealthy and well-connected supporters on Thursday that he would soon start an aggressive campaign to define himself as a centrist, in hopes of peeling moderate Republicans from President Bush.”

The Times went on to say:

” 'We've got to reach out,' Mr. Kerry said. 'There are so many Republicans who have said to me: “You know, for the first time in my life, I'm going to vote for a Democrat. I'm ready to switch over.” '

“He noted that Reagan Democrats were a critical faction in the 1980's but that Democrats like President Jimmy Carter had trouble attracting Republican votes.”

Well, duhhh! Maybe it's because Democrats like Jimmy Carter didn't appeal to bigoted, homophobic, ignorant yahoos who believe that all the world's ills can be settled at the point of a cruise missile.

Senator, don't you want to attract votes of, you know, . . . Democrats? Those people who believe government has a responsibility to punish those who don't keep our air and water clean? To ensure that people who want to work can get work? Who want to be well can remain well? Who want to be accepted as people, no matter the way their genes line up? And to defend this nation and its people, not subjugate everyone else in our name?

“Their goal is to define me and make me unacceptable,” the Times quoted Kerry as saying. “Our goal has to be to keep that acceptability.”

Well, excuse me, Senator, but acceptable to whom? I mean, Howard Dean said he needed to appeal to Southerners with Confederate flags on the windshield and gun racks on their pickup trucks. But this is scary.

For eight years we had a Republicrat administration whose unofficial slogan was “A chicken in every pot, a Beemer in every garage.” The rest of us poor schlubs just filed our taxes, saw single parents on welfare suffer and saw affordable health care become as rare as the truth in Washington. Is this what John Kerry considers “acceptable” to Middle America?

Is this what John Kerry considers acceptable to us?