In his interview in this newspaper yesterday, Jerry Fan (范可欽), the PR guru whose makeover of Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) image is regarded as a major factor in the DPP bantamweight's success, admitted that he had his work cut out with his new client, Lien Chan (連戰). Here's a suggestion, Jerry: Think glam rock. Yes, we remember the DPP tried the pop route back in 1997 with their so-called "spice girls," but this was cheap, amateurish and above all half-hearted. We recommend something much more full-blooded. Think Kiss concerts circa 1980.
Okay, so Lien doesn't have Paul Stanley's cruel good looks or even Gene Simmons' long tongue, but enough leather, makeup, smoke, noise and explosions should be able to overcome that. Let's see spectacle and lots of it. The songs were almost tailor-made for an election campaign: "I was made for loving you, baby/ you were made for loving me/ I can't get enough of you, baby/ can you get enough of me?" -- What a theme! Who wouldn't vote for that?
Well let's qualify that last statement: Who wouldn't vote for that compared with the KMT's last attempt at an election campaign, when it insulted the intelligence of Taiwan's voters with its hysteria over "impending" war with China?
Of course our suggestion is going to provoke opposition from the more conservative elements of the KMT. Elections should be serious matters involving tough debate over policy concerns central to the electorate. To which we can only answer: Be careful what you wish for. After all, what does the KMT stand for now but a mere mouthpiece of Beijing, with its endless harping about "one China" and the "1992 consensus." No wonder Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) treats it with utter contempt.
The problem of course is that the KMT's strategy to recover power hinges crucially on stealing voters from the PFP -- ie, those who would have voted for the KMT but for James Soong's (宋楚瑜) recalcitrance in refusing to play second fiddle. Soong has a strong reunificationist stance and Lien therefore is trying to match it (hence Lee's contempt). But 36 percent of the electorate did not vote for James Soong simply because of his reunificationism. Some did, of course. But many others voted for Soong simply because they saw him as a far more competent executive than Lien in spite of the KMT's best efforts to portray him as a crook.
In the past year we have seen nothing from Lien that would change anybody's opinion on this matter. For those who are driven strictly by reunificationism, a choice between Lien's vaporings about a commonwealth of greater China and Soong's (albeit unacknowledged) embrace of the "interim agreement" strategy probably cashes out in Soong's favor. For those looking simply for that elusive thing "good government," it is hard to forget that Lien's performance as premier mobilized 100,000 people onto the streets of Taipei demanding his dismissal -- twice!
Lien's election on Saturday was of course a travesty of the democratic reform that the new "opposition KMT" was supposed to institute. That Lien, after his dreadful election performance, had no challenger in his bid for the chairmanship, shows either that freedom of opinion in the KMT is just as restricted as it was in more autocratic days or that there is an utterly, crippling poverty of imagination in the party. Neither of these qualities is anything to brag about.
With legislative and local government elections just over seven months away, it is far too late to do anything about this. Empty of content, the KMT can only hope for a triumph of style. As the late, stupendously great Marc Bolan might have said: Lien's our boy, our 21st Century toy.
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