John Kerry in Grand Rapids

I just got back from a rally in downtown Grand Rapids for John Kerry. For those who don't know, West Michigan is Republican territory, where the GOP primaries often determine the outcome of local elections, because the Democrat doesn't stand a chance. But we still had a crowd of (reportedly) 20,000 people show up on Calder Plaza downtown in the hot sun on a workday.

I actually spent as much time standing in line as I did standing on the plaza. The local Democrats distributed free tickets, which were mostly for the sake of figuring out how many people were there, because they didn't actually check the tickets to get access to the plaza. (There were also "blue tickets" for those people with party connections, which I assume got people in more quickly and probably gave them places to sit.) I saw former governor Jim Blanchard walk by; people waved at him, and he smiled and waved back.

Michael Sak, the one local Democrat elected to the Michigan House of Representatives, was the first speaker I was close enough to hear. He was followed by Senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin. Levin's one of my heroes, and Stabenow is a good egg. Governor Jennifer Granholm was on the platform, but unless it was before I got close enough, she didn't speak. (She got to speak at the Dem's national convention last week.) The main speakers were Teresa Heinz Kerry, who talked quietly about a variety of topics, including the value of women's perspective in politics, and about her current husband John, who wants to be president.

I liked most of what Sen. Kerry had to say. He was absolutely (and obviously) right about how America needs to play better with other countries, and how urgent it is to get rid of Bush so we can do that again. Of course as a mainstream candidate looking for votes, he did a lot of nationalist posturing about how American workers are at least as good as workers in other countries and apparently are more deserving of jobs. But he talked about the need to get the burden of health insurance costs off the backs of employers, which he plans to do by putting the highest-cost catastrophic cases under a government-funded plan. And I like his idea of offering college students free tuition at state colleges in exchange for two years of community service, which would not only help them get an education, but also give them experience in the real world, and more time to figure out what they want to do with their lives before selecting a major in college... which is to say nothing of the benefit to society of the work they'd do.

Grand Rapids was the first stop on Kerry's tour in which they're promoting his and Edwards' new book Our Plan for America: Stronger at Home, Respected in the World. You can also read it online. Good to know they have one. (Another item online worth reading is Ron Reagan's article in Esquire, The Case Against George W. Bush.)

I couldn't help noticing that the Democrats are currently suffering from Clueless Campaign Song Syndrome, much like the Republicans. The GOP has a history of using - without irony - songs like "Born in the U.S.A." and "Pink Houses" (both about the failure of the American Dream) and the inane "Don't Worry, Be Happy". The Dems at least used to use songs like "Happy Days Are Here Again" and "Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow". Well, here the Dems were using "Glory Days" as some kind of pump-em-up anthem, despite the fact that it's about old-timers whose best days are behind them. Apply that to John Kerry, and it's a pretty unflattering commentary about a hero from a bygone war.

I'm certainly hoping that John Kerry's got 4 or 8 years of "glory days" ahead of him.