Wednesday, April 28, 2004
All this Vietnam stuff is going to make for a truly shitty campaign. I think the blame is on the Bush people for starting it and I can't blame the Kerry people for responding in kind, but we are looking at a campaign in the gutter, folks, premised on who did what in Vietnam or just after Vietnam. I just don't think national Democratic candidates do as well playing dirty as Republicans do. I can't say why, it's just a strong feeling that I have. One could certainly argue, for example that the truly successful dirty candidates were those who ran against non incumbents: Poppy Bush and Dubya. Against an incumbent, though, this sort of stuff looks small. Again, this isn't Kerry's fault, but he can't let this campaign get defined for him as a mudslinging match. That's a sure-as-hell ticket back to Boston.
