Democrats have been theorizing for years that the working classes have been "duped" into voting Republican; I think the term lefties like to toss around is "false consciousness." Democrats whine that if Joe Six-Pack would "just realize" that Dem policies match working-class interests while R policies screw the working class, liberals would be able to take back the Congress and the presidency. Not surprisingly, that condescending "we know better" approach has failed to net many D voters. Kerry figured this out last week and tweaked the pitch in a brilliant way. Rather than telling Middle America that Dem themes match main-street interests, he simply said main-street themes--patriotism, family values, etc. --match Dem interests. It worked like a charm.

So, to officially acknowledge what a rock-solid speech Kerry gave on the closing night of the Democratic convention (Kerry's minimal bounce aside), we're lowering the Bush reelection threat from Blue to Green.

Kerry succinctly turned stock Republican sound bites on their heads and tossed them right back in Bush's face: Liberals aren't "pessimists," Kerry said, when they criticize a status quo where "wages are falling, health care costs are rising, [the] middle class is shrinking... and people are working three jobs, and still not getting ahead." Kerry corrected: "There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can't do better. We're the optimists." He concluded: "I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws."

Bush can't talk about family values, Kerry boomed, without "valuing families." "Honor thy mother and father," Kerry said, savaging Bush's Medicare travesty as "another windfall" for "big drug companies" and arguing that "you don't value families by kicking kids out of afterschool programs so that Enron can get another tax break" or "telling middle-class families to wait for a tax cut so that the wealthiest among us can get even more."

And finally, rather than claiming that "God is on our side," Kerry declared we should "pray humbly that we are on God's side," concluding with a harsh critique of Bush's war in Iraq: "The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to.... You will never be asked to fight a war without a plan to win the peace."

Ultimately, the beauty of Kerry's Boston speech was that he managed to take traditional Republican touchstones (optimism, values, and God) and infuse them with a heavy dose of liberal populism. The result was something Democrats haven't been able to pull off in years: Presenting progressive themes in a way that clicks with the working class. Bush, who cynically played up three-year-old intelligence to raise the terror alert this week, is obviously worried about Kerry's smart move . --JF