It begins and ends with a song. Several, actually. The Kerry for President rally at the Thomas & Mack Center was nothing if not musical. As the capacity crowd filed in, Doo-Woop.com takes the stage, playing a selection of '50s music guaranteed not to appeal to the 18- to 22-year-old voters Bill Clinton has recently been saying would be the salvation of the Democratic Party.
No matter, the early-bird senior dancing and shaking his fist in the air doesn't seem to mind. The fact that one of the songs was "I'm Just a Gigolo" doesn't seem to matter, either. A thick band of cables snakes across the floor, tripping the elderly and handicapped. After a few near-falls, someone places a wheelchair ramp over it. Building a wheelchair ramp to the future, as Clinton might have said. But the ramp has the opposite effect, as many make an extra effort to avoid it, tripping and struggling over the still-exposed cables.
Hizzonor comes out at 5:20 p.m. to standing applause, tossing T-shirts and preparing us for the parade of three-minute speakers, who in turn are preparing us for the main course.
Jim Bilbray, ex-Congressman, tells us John Kerry is an exemplary human being because he let a staffer going through a tough pregnancy leave work early. Nevada Sen. Terry Care, "reporting for duty!" State party chairwoman Adriana Martinez, first to mention Kerry's anti-Yucca Mountain stance (cheers) and President Bush's impending visit (boos). Minority Leader Dina Titus: "Nevada is no gamble; it's a sure bet for John Kerry." (Laughs.) Yvonne Atkinson-Gates: "Yes, we are our brothers' keepers." (Weak applause—as in Big Brother?) Congresswoman Shelley Berkley draws boos for mentioning the carpenters union and mixed applause for government employees.
Finally, the Kerry clan emerges. His talk is everything you've come to expect from Democrats: catchphrases ("closing the gap of credibility"), faint flattery ("you folks are folks of common sense") and impossible-to-keep vows ("I will always tell America the truth"). Then there are the Election-Year Promises, the Planks of the Mighty Platform, upon which We the People will stand and be Raised to the House on the Hill. Something like that.
While swearing to tax the shit out of the rich, Kerry promises to create millionaires and billionaires out of pipe-fitters and painters, whom he will then presumably tax the shit out of. And he'll have to do just that to fund his vision. He will pay for catastrophic medical cases with tax dollars; he'll cut off Middle Eastern oil and pay for solar power with tax dollars; he'll find someplace else to store that nuclear waste, pay down student loans for teachers and give those studying geriatrics a free four-year ride.
With your tax dollars.
Notable by its absence: gay marriage.
He closes by promising to "unify America. No red states, no blue states. Just red, white and blue states."
Make that red, white and poor states.