Style Fucking Matters
(my open letter to the President)

Dear President Bush,

Have you seen the latest Electoral College map? i took the liberty of turning it into a gif file so i could highlight some important areas of concern for me, and i hope, for you too.

You see, things were looking good before last Thursday, when you decided to blow off the first debate. Now the race has tightened up considerably and, while i'm not in panic mode yet, i am a little worried. i don't like to see those battleground states see-sawing back and forth this close to the election. i don't care what anybody else says, last Thursday night hurt us.

Listen, i know how good you can be. i've listened to you give some incredible speeches. Yesterday's for instance. You can speak off the cuff pretty good too, as you proved to me after 9/11. And as for prepared speeches, well i think your remarks to the Joint Session of Congress on 9/20/01 will go down as one of the great speeches of all time.

i don't really care what happened last Thursday. What's done is done. Do you watch The Apprentice? (i hope not. You got more important things to do.) Last night on the show, there was a new team leader who took over a team that needed a win badly. i liked how she talked to the team at the beginning, so i'm going to take the same tone with you. i hope you don't mind.

i know you don't have a lot of time to prepare like Kerry does, since you still gotta be president, and he doesn't. i know you were tired last week. i know you spent the day with the hurricane victims. i don't fucking care. i know you don't like to debate. i know you have a hard time being articulate. i know you got annoyed at Kerry's distortions and contradictions. i know you feel like you shouldn't have to explain the obvious point that you've been protecting our collective asses every single fucking day for three years now. i know you get pissed at Kerry's Monday morning quarterbacking and it shows in your face. i know that Kerry's positions on national security are nonsensical and that by any logical standard, you should have won that debate. i hear the spinmeisters on our side saying that style doesn't or shouldn't or didn't matter. Well listen to me.

Style fucking matters.

i don't fucking care that you're not as good at debating as Kerry. Or that you're can't be an encyclopedia of facts and statistics like Kerry. This is important. You have to work at it. You can't just mail it in like last time. We're out here working our asses off for you and a lot of us were pretty pissed last week. And part of it was because you kinda looked like that guy your opponents say you are. You know, the frat boy who's kind of out of his league. i know you're not that guy. i know the things you said should have been more important than how you said them. i know you should have won on substance. But you know what? You didn't. Look at that map. Style fucking matters dude.

This race should be over by now. It's hard enough that you got the unholy alliance - the media, the academics, the entertainers - all against you. Hell, it's hard for me to have to listen to them too. It's kind of unfair that they're such fucked up liars and yet they can say whatever they want against you. Yah it's hard work winning an election when the other side's got that advantage.

So that's why you gotta work at this style thing. It's important. Look at that map. Just a few weeks ago it was looking pretty red. Yah i know the polls are biased too. i don't fucking care. Last Thursday hurt us. And it was not because you didn't say the right things. You just didn't prepare with enough right things to say. It's hard work. It's hard work. Yah, well it's hard work preparing for a debate too. You still gotta do it. You gotta memorize shit and practice. And you can't be so afraid that you'll say something wrong that you end up saying nothing.

If you turn in another performance like last Thursday's it's your ass. And if it's your ass, it's our asses too. Cuz we can't have Kerry in office, you see, that would be a very very very bad thing. i know you know that.

And i know you can do this thing. i watched all your debates in 2000 and you were good. Of course you were up against Al Gore. This time, Kerry's proved that he's not going to say and do weird shit like Gore did. So he won't shoot himself in the foot, that don't mean he's not vulnerable. Kerry's got big vulnerabilities. But he's going to try to hide them. It's up to you to talk about his record, his positions. It's up to you to point those things out to the audience in detail, and with confidence. Because style fucking matters in this thing.

So, just like that guy said to you in New York after 9/11, don't let us down. We're counting on you. Go out there and kick some ass this time.

Love always,
annika