In the 2000 election George Bush and Dick Cheney liked to denigrate the US military by implying it was in poor condition by saying "help is on the way." In reality the military was in excellent shape, witness the quick military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Changing the military doesn't happen overnight so it was Bill Clinton's military that won the wars. Keeping the peace is another matter and Bush has always said he doesn't believe in nation building.
So in 2000 help was already there but the Bush/Cheney comment was a cheap shot that won votes, and possibly enough to allow the GOP to steal the election. Four years later, in the midst of economic and other problems, people are loooking for solutions and if conservative New York Times columnist is correct, the people Sen. John Kerry would pick for his administration are heads and tails better than the people George Bush picked.
Among the names Safire guessed would be in a Kerry administration were Richard Holbrooke - Secretary of State; Sen. John McCain - Secretary of Defense (although Safire predicts he would turn it down); Rand Beers or Sandy Berger - National Security Advisor; and Bob Kerrey - Director of the CIA.
Compare those with Don Rumsfield, Defense; Don Evans, Commerce; Gail Norton, Interior; John Ashcroft, Justice; Rod Paige, Education; and Elaine Chao, Labor. Bush does have a few decent nominees, Colin Powell, but it's interesting that he is viewed as an outcast.
After reading Safire's list of predicted Kerry nominees one starts to think "can we just start the process now and put adults back in charge?"
With these individuals in charge, help indeed would indeed be on the way.
