Friday morning, I wrote about the trouble getting accurate information about Kerry’s campaign stop in Kansas, and linked to an article that said it was uncertain if it would even happen. Well, it turns out that they said it would happen but it didn’t (CNN.com). Thousands of supports watched Kerry’s train whiz by at speed.

The story is that they planned to make the stop but didn’t tell the conductor. For those of you not familiar with how railroads work, the conductor is the one person that must know because he is the one that is responsible to clearing the train to start and stop.

I suspect that the problem is more deep — a miscommunication, perhaps?

I had heard through the grapevine that Kerry/Edwards will be traveling through Kansas making campaign stops. But I did not know where or when.

So, I decided to go to johnkerry.com to find out information on campaign stops. Nope. They only have information on events that have already happend. John Kerry’s website provides no information on how to actually see the candidate.

I e-mailed them with their Contact Us option asking when Kerry would be in Kansas, and suggesting they put this info on their site. They ignored my message. (They had several days already.)

I then decided to check out the Kerry Blog. Again, lots of stuff about recent events, but nothing about what’s upcoming. I tried to post a comment. It appeared to require that I register, but simply providing my e-mail address and a random password worked. But — despite a successful confirmation message, my comment never appeared.

Then I decided to try Google. I finally found some information from the Kansas Democratic Party, but about only one stop (in Lawrence). It didn’t mention the event I already knew was happening in Kansas City, nor did it say anything about possible events farther west in Kansas. I tried to post a comment, but this blog requires me to go through a time-consuming account creation process first. Also, their post doesn’t even mention the fact that Kerry might not even stop at all. Talk about screwing with people that might drive hours to see him.

So, it seems to me that the Democrats don’t give a damn what the average voter thinks, or even make an attempt to connect with them honestly. Not that the Republicans are any different, mind you. I just hoped that they may have gotten a little bit of a clue from Howard Dean. Sigh.

Like many Americans, I spent less time watching the convention this year than I have in the past years. Probably because I was just busy with other things.

Anyway, I did have a few thoughts. For one, I enjoyed Clinton’s line Monday night: Wisdom and strength are not opposing values. Well put, and it would do many Americans well to remember that. Killing people and invading countries are not the only ways to be strong in the face of adversity.

Clinton is a better orator (aside: why do people say “speechmaker” instead of “orator”?) than I had remembered. He gave a passionate, moving speech. His main idea was to highlight problems we face and respond with “Send John Kerry!”

Yesterday was Kerry’s night. While not as impressive as Clinton’s, Kerry’s speech still seemed very good, and worked well with the audience he had. I thought he did a good job of responding to some Republican attacks. For instance, Republicans have called him an economic pessimist, and Bush has insisted that “the economy is good”. Kerry said “The most pessimistic thing I’ve heard is that we can’t be any better than we already are.” Zing.

He also said, in a reference to Ron Reagan, “I do not wear my religion on my sleeve.” And, “In the words of Abraham Lincoln, ‘I do not say that God is on my side. Instead, I humbly pray that I am on God’s side.'” Highly effective rebuttal to Bush’s strategy, I think.

Kerry spent a lot of time talking about being a veteran. Personally, that doesn’t make a great deal of difference. I can see it might move some.

He also spent time talking about terrorism. He proposed enlarging our military by 30,000 troops — but not in Iraq. He also advocated a, to paraphrase, less stupid approach to dealing with terrorism, but simultaneously stressed that he would not hesistate to retaliate for attacks.

So much for the less stupid approach. The USA already has by far the world’s largest, most powerful, and best organized armed forces. Yet terrorists have succeeded in attacking our forces in Saudi Arabia, Africa, Iraq, and even the military’s headquarters in Washington, DC. I’m sure the extra 30,000 troops among millions of people already in the military is going to have them quivering in their shoes.

Both Kerry and Bush are demonstrating a fundamental flaw: failure to understand the enemy’s motivations. Many of the radicals in the area see themselves as fighting for freedom against repressive dictatorships propped up by the United States. Perhaps an easier, less bloody, quicker, and less costly way to avoid future attacks on us would be to stop supporting all the regional dictatorships in the middle east? Perhaps to even be a force for democracy? (And Iraq does not count — how many dictators did we have to befriend to make that whole thing work?)

Off the soapbox, Kerry’s central theme was optimism. He wants people to believe that America’s best years are yet ahead, to let go of fear, etc. I think that is a good message, and does a lot to undercut the fearmongering of the Bushies.

Take a look at Resonance: Pot Lucks for Bush — it’s a little scary what he’s trying to do. Apparently many conservative churches are nonplussed, and have traditionally asked people to “vote their values” without naming specific candidates or parties. I’m fine with that, but it always seems odd to me when churches endorse a particular candidate or party, regardless of whether the church is conservative or liberal.

There’s a lot to be worried about in this study about sexual misconduct in our K-12 education system.

Apparently, 10% (or 4.5 million) students face anything from inappropriate jokes to forced sex.
What’s more surprising are the reactions:

• National Education Association spokesman said “Lumping harassment together with serious sexual misconduct does more harm than good by creating unjustified alarm”. I think that teachers sexually harassing students is cause for alarm, even if it isn’t physical; damage from that can be long-lasting.
• The Deputy Education Secretary said that find findings could be “considered insufficiently focused.” In the next sentence, the report says the officials “did nothing to downplay the importance of the problem.” Huh? Isn’t that what they were doing? Claiming that only assault is a problem?

The article does make a good point at the end, too, about the unknown truthfulness of allegations. “Teachers increasingly fear making even the most innocent gestures, like hugging a child having a bad day.” Let’s fix the real problems, not non-problems like hugs.

Yes, it’s a rare thing. Hard to get from the national media. Here it is from a local independant Wichita paper.

Months ago, when this presidential race started, Howard Dean seemed the way the go. He truly was revolutionizing the way campaigns were run, money was raised, and volunteers were organized.

Dean’s poor showing in Iowa has done nothing to change my opinion. I think that the people in New Hampshire that are changing their votes because of how an election went in a different state are nuts. An election in a different state should have no bearing on your choice; you should choose based on issues and electability.

But there has been an increasing question in my mind about the electability of any of the Democratic contenders. Dean, for instance, appears to shoot himself in the foot with such regularity that it may soon be necessary for him to use crutches. I saw the speech Monday, was not offended by it, but it was clear that this was not a speech for television — or even one that recognized that TV cameras were present. Dean certainly did have a large audience there, as statement on Blog for America says. But he had a larger audience nationwide, and he erred in neglecting it.

Whie Dean erred, people need to take this in context, which is the point his campaign staff is making. I don’t see it as indicitive of an overall character problem, and moreover, I think it is better to have someone that is full of energy rather than someone that looks like he hasn’t had his morning cup of coffee yet. At 7PM.