Kerry the redeemer

I think I’ve got the storyline that wins the election for Kerry. (Caveat: I’ve been out on limbs before.)
Taegan Goddard notes that Kerry has thus far successfully targeted veterans.
Here’s how I see it. Kerry served. He did his duty. Like all thinking people of his age group in that time, he had doubts about that war, but he went to war in his turn. What he saw there convinced him that the criticisms of the war were correct and after completing his service with distinction, injured and awarded, he used his unique platform to oppose the war as someone who saw it up close.
The George Bush people want to contrast Kerry’s abiity to see both sides of a problem with Bush’s death grip on his received wisdom, but I think this is Kerry’s great strength. He did the right thing in terms of the traditional values of the WWII generation, and he also stood with integrity against the war when out of uniform.
Face it, this country is still riven by the divide that erupted in the ’60s. And even though only one in five people associate Jane Fonda with Vietnam protest, the division in our society has continued to play out through other cultural proxies, but Kerry will be the healer off this festering wound.
Kerry has stood on both sides of the divide, and in him we can elect someone who will put that history behind us and move forward with a reintegrated society, a sort of truth- and- reconciliation movement of the mind.
I think we’re going to win if we remember not to cower in fear when they brandish their talismans of hate at us.