Forget Iraq. Forget taxes. Forget flu shots and flip flops and Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter (that is, if the Kerry campaign will let you).

You want to know why America isn’t going to elect John Kerry our next president? Because the guy’s just too weird.

Now, before all you Kerry supporters toss this aside and go back to your transcripts of NPR’s All Things Considered — please, hear me out. I’m not saying there is anything necessarily wrong with John Kerry as a person. I’m really not even trying to insult him … not at the moment, anyway. He’s just, well, odd. Different. Leaving all references to patriotism aside, he’s not very American.

I don’t know when it first occurred to me that John Kerry is too weird to be our president, but it may have been when I read in the New York Times that one of his homes is a 15th-century English farmhouse. Like, from England. It was moved to an Idaho ski resort brick by brick.

Kerry travels there from his 23-room townhouse in Georgetown (or his 18th-century Boston manor, his palatial estate in Pittsburgh) by flying on a private jet with gold-plated fixtures in its two (2!) bathrooms.

John Kerry: Friend Of The Workin’ Man!

And how many multi-millionaires do you know who have never had an actual job? Wait — how many millionaires do you know at all?

That’s my point. John Kerry doesn’t represent any wing, sect, or base of the greater American public.

John Kerry is the ’60s peace activist who brags about his combat experience in Vietnam.

John Kerry is the anti-war candidate who voted to go to war in Iraq. He’s the “internationalist” who believes we should only use force after passing a global test, but who voted against the first Gulf War and its international coalition.

John Kerry is the Catholic who believes life begins at conception, but who supports partial birth abortion. He’s the ACLU liberal who fears the influence of the Christian Right, but spends his Sundays campaigning from the pulpits of black churches.

John Kerry is the life-long advocate of gun control who never misses a chance to wave a shotgun over his head, even when it’s a style of shotgun he’s voted to ban.

John Kerry is the guy who says the wealthy don’t pay enough in taxes, but who paid just 12.5 percent in federal income taxes last year. The average working American family paid around 20 percent.

And that’s just the political John Kerry — the John Kerry who speaks French while campaigning in Florida. The personal John Kerry is even more bizarre.

He’s a guy who hunts, but hunts pheasant. He’s a guy who’s an athlete, but he windsurfs and thinks the Green Bay Packers play at “Lambert Field.” He constantly talks about how it’s the president’s duty to create jobs, but he’s never created one. And he’s a guy who constantly attacks President Bush for being a wealthy elitist, while he and Teresa are snacking on paté and foie gras.

And speaking of Teresa …

Are we really prepared to have the Heinz-Kerrys appearing on our TV sets night after night? Would you ever want them as house guests?

For example, in the last debate, Kerry gets asked a question about the strong women in his life, meaning his wife and daughters, but instead talks about his mom. His mom? Then again, if you were married to one of the lost Gabor sisters, you wouldn’t want to talk about it, either.

Even stranger, however, was Kerry’s claim that, when he told his dying mother that he planned to run for president, her words to him from her deathbed were “Integrity, integrity, integrity.” Not “I love you” or “Your father would have been so proud.” Just “integrity.” Setting aside speculation about why she felt her son needed that specific encouragement, what kind of mom is that? What kind of family is it?

Look, everybody has their little quirks and oddities. My irrational affectations could keep the psych program at USC’s medical school busy for an entire semester. But at every turn, in every arena, John Kerry is the man who doesn’t fit.

Forget Democrat vs. Republican: Why would anyone want this guy to be our president?

Well, the French would. And the Germans. And Yasser Arafat. And the anti-Semitic former president of Malaysia. And, according to one poll, the citizens of every surveyed country except Russia and Israel.

All of which lends credence to the idea that John Kerry might make an excellent president … of the United Nations.

But of America? No way.
ps....
One of the many things about Kerry that creeps me out is the way he always licks his lips. It's positively reptilian. During his 2 minute closing remarks at the 3rd debate he licked his lips eleven times. Eleven times. That's more than once every ten seconds. Very creepy.
ps2...
Kerry is also the guy who said that he didn't carry the goose back from the blind because "“I’m still giddy over the Red Sox. It was hard to focus.”

1. He can't focus because he's giddy over a freaking GAME, and he wants to be President!?

2. He can't focus because he's giddy over a freaking GAME, and he goes out with a loaded gun!? Great judgment, don't you think?

Forget about the Game or the Gun. How many men ever say they are freak'n GIDDY!

Happy. Pumped. Psyched. even Elated. But Giddy? Guys don't get Giddy.

Something ain't right.
~Paula~