Saturday, August 28, 2004
The developing controversy over the claims of the anti-Kerry Swift Boat veterans has the potential to shape this election. Already, it has dragged Kerry off-message. Also, it has narrowed his lead in general, and especially in swing states. Sites tracking the electoral map find him barely up; Electoral-vote.com has him getting exactly 270 votes as of yesterday.
On the plus side of things, half of Americans do see this as being conducted by the Bush campaign. In the same poll, the number of people believing that Kerry did not earn his medals dropped from 30% to 24%. One would have to figure out which 24%, but given the sizable share of American conservatives who convinced themselves that Bill Clinton routinely murdered political opponents, one has to figure that there's a statistical floor.
Was Kerry caught off guard by this? I don't think so. He may have timed his counterattack poorly, but citing Bush's treatment of McCain in 2000 was a masterstroke. What is needed now is to capitalize on the refutation of the SBVT group by the media, which is largely on Kerry's side on this issue. He should devote a week or two to underlining the links between the Bush campaign and SBVT. But he'll need to get back on message as well, perhaps concurrently running campaign ads.
Bush has played his hand well by calling for an end to 527 group advertising and pretending to seize the high ground by praising Kerry's war record. He may have done this sort of thing too many times before to have it come off, but attacking 527 groups may play well with centrist voters who aren't fond of the MoveOn genre of ads either. One would hate for Bush to profit from such an unscrupulous attack strategy but he seems to be doing so right now. The state polls are much narrower now than they were three weeks ago. A strong convention could put Bush over, even as US fatalities in Iraq move inexorably into 4 digits.
This is still the middle of the campaign season. The debates will mark the beginning of the end and Bush has handed Kerry a great opportunity to attack him. Mano a mano, Kerry can quickly puncture Bush's weak defenses on the ads, just as Clinton memorably shot Poppy Bush down in 1992 on the charge that his 1969 visit to Russia was somehow questionable. At this point, he'll have to raise it. This thing isn't nearly played out until he does.
On the plus side of things, half of Americans do see this as being conducted by the Bush campaign. In the same poll, the number of people believing that Kerry did not earn his medals dropped from 30% to 24%. One would have to figure out which 24%, but given the sizable share of American conservatives who convinced themselves that Bill Clinton routinely murdered political opponents, one has to figure that there's a statistical floor.
Was Kerry caught off guard by this? I don't think so. He may have timed his counterattack poorly, but citing Bush's treatment of McCain in 2000 was a masterstroke. What is needed now is to capitalize on the refutation of the SBVT group by the media, which is largely on Kerry's side on this issue. He should devote a week or two to underlining the links between the Bush campaign and SBVT. But he'll need to get back on message as well, perhaps concurrently running campaign ads.
Bush has played his hand well by calling for an end to 527 group advertising and pretending to seize the high ground by praising Kerry's war record. He may have done this sort of thing too many times before to have it come off, but attacking 527 groups may play well with centrist voters who aren't fond of the MoveOn genre of ads either. One would hate for Bush to profit from such an unscrupulous attack strategy but he seems to be doing so right now. The state polls are much narrower now than they were three weeks ago. A strong convention could put Bush over, even as US fatalities in Iraq move inexorably into 4 digits.
This is still the middle of the campaign season. The debates will mark the beginning of the end and Bush has handed Kerry a great opportunity to attack him. Mano a mano, Kerry can quickly puncture Bush's weak defenses on the ads, just as Clinton memorably shot Poppy Bush down in 1992 on the charge that his 1969 visit to Russia was somehow questionable. At this point, he'll have to raise it. This thing isn't nearly played out until he does.
