People are always talking about how important it is for politicians to seem relatable—i.e., know how much groceries cost, or be someone folks want to have a beer with. Therefore, in my unequivocally correct opinion, John Kerry should have left the word “fucking” in a tweet he made on Sunday night. Stay with me.
On Sunday, an NBC report ran claiming former Secretary of State/2004 presidential election loser Kerry had been overheard on a phone call floating a possible 2020 run, allegedly to “stop” Bernie Sanders—as if Sanders supporter, and not, say, Biden or Klobuchar supporters, would switch over to Kerry, though that’s neither here nor there.
NBC said:
Sitting in the lobby restaurant of the Renaissance Savery hotel, Kerry was overheard by an NBC News analyst saying “maybe I’m f—-ing deluding myself here” and explaining that in order to run, he’d have to step down from the board of Bank of America and give up his ability to make paid speeches. Kerry said donors like venture capitalist Doug Hickey would have to “raise a couple of million,” adding that such donors “now have the reality of Bernie.”
Briefly after the news broke, the internet suffered a collective harrowing flashback to George W. Bush’s re-election night, but it wasn’t long before Kerry refuted the NBC report in a tweet, which said the following (emphasis mine):
As I told the reporter, I am absolutely not running for President. Any report otherwise is fucking (or categorically) false. I’ve been proud to campaign with my good friend Joe Biden, who is going to win the nomination, beat Trump, and make an outstanding president.
This is a great tweet, and not just because it appears also to be a poem. The word “fucking” here works both as emphasis and a callback to the original NBC report, which, as demonstrated in the segment pulled from it in this blog post, included a quote from Kerry using the word “fucking.” Indeed, in this tweet, Kerry is both flawed and very nearly funny. Not that I want Kerry to run for president again, as the Democratic primary clown car is already overstuffed, but we’re talking about needing politicians to seem human, this tweet is objectively good.
Sadly, it seems like someone on Kerry’s team (maybe Kerry, maybe someone paid to do PR) does not agree with me. The tweet was deleted and replaced with one that did not include the word “fucking.”
Once again, a politician caves to outside interests, i.e. no-fun-havers tweeting “Senator, there’s no need for cussing!” in the replies. Needless to say, this is very disappointing.