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Kerry Nation?
The Weekly Standard ^ | February 23, 2004 | Fred Barnes

Posted on 02/13/2004 9:11:31 PM PST by RWR8189

Don't bet on it.

REMEMBER THE BEAR in the woods? It was featured in the most devastating of President Reagan's TV ads in the 1984 presidential race. An angry, menacing bear was shown prowling through a forest. "There's a bear in the woods," the narrator said. "For some people the bear is easy to see. Others don't see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it's vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who's right, isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear--if there is a bear?" Then a man with a gun appears and the bear takes a step back. The final words on the screen: "President Reagan, prepared for peace."

The ad never mentioned the Soviets, the Cold War, the Red Army, Communists, or Reagan's Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale. It didn't need to. It was clever and amusing, but it made a point. Reagan would pursue peace through strength. His opponent might not see the threat to the United States posed by the bear, the symbol of the Soviet Union. But why should voters take a chance? They didn't. Reagan won reelection overwhelmingly.

I cite the bear in the woods ad as an example of how President Bush's reelection campaign can go after his likely Democratic rival, John Kerry. The key is not to scream, "Liberal, liberal, liberal." That rarely works anymore. What should work, though, is a TV spot with wit and subtlety that plays up a Kerry weakness. Take Kerry's insistence that the terrorist threat to this country is "an exaggeration." A droll but pointed anti-Kerry ad along the lines of the bear in the woods practically writes itself. Other ads do too, notably ones with clips from the fevered, over-the-top attacks on Bush by Al Gore ("betrayed the country"), Wesley Clark ("not patriotic"), and Howard Dean ("the enemy").

But if Kerry is a target-rich environment, why are Republicans and conservatives despairing over Bush's chances of defeating him? The answer is they've succumbed to panic. Sure, Bush has had a bad month. His State of the Union address was flat. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (yet) is embarrassing. The National Guard flap is a distraction. The deficit is nothing to brag about. And Kerry has emerged from nowhere as a formidable foe who looks all the better because he's not Howard Dean.

Presidential campaigns unfold in phases and this is the Kerry phase. The storyline for the moment is: Kerry wins. Every week, sometimes twice a week, he beats his Democratic rivals. John Edwards, Wesley Clark, and Dean serve as the patsy Washington Generals who lose every game to Kerry's Harlem Globetrotters. This produces a stream of favorable stories about Kerry. Indeed, the Kerry phase may last through Super Tuesday on March 2, and there's nothing the president or his campaign team can do about it. Their time will come soon enough.

For Bush operatives, the problem with Kerry is where to begin. National security? Gay marriage? Flip-flops? Special interests? Beginning with national security makes the most sense since it's Kerry's weakest issue. It's the one he least wants to discuss. All that bravado about "bring it on" if Bush wants to raise national security actually means "don't bring it on." By talking tough, Kerry hopes to scare Bush off. The emphasis on Kerry's heroism as a young naval officer is designed to inoculate him on national security. It shouldn't. He's voted against practically every weapon the military relies on, and he's made a strong bid to slash intelligence funding. Cutting the CIA budget may have looked safe in the 1990s, but post-9/11 it doesn't.

The Bush campaign is inclined to ding Kerry as a phony because he's been on both sides of so many issues. This, by the way, makes it difficult to tag him as an unswerving liberal. While he favors higher taxes, he voted in 1986 to cut the top rate on individual income to 28 percent. Bush's tax cuts brought the top rate down to only 35 percent. But playing both sides of an issue could hurt Kerry on gay marriage. He opposes gay marriage but isn't for a constitutional amendment to bar it. He says states should decide the matter, but he voted against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 that allows states to do just that. Trying to reconcile these conflicts may tie Kerry in knots.

Kerry's inconsistency on Iraq is his greatest liability, not just because he's taken incompatible positions, but because he's trifled with a serious national security issue. He voted against the Gulf War in 1991, for the Iraq war resolution in 2002, and then against $87 billion to fund the Iraq effort. The only coherent explanation for these votes is political expediency. He voted each time for what would advance his political career as a Democrat. When those votes began to sour, he changed his tune. Once the war to drive Saddam Hussein from Kuwait became a popular success, he said he had backed it all along. This year when Democratic elites turned against the war, Kerry suddenly adopted an antiwar position, explaining his vote for the war resolution as merely a vote to "threaten" Iraq, not invade.

Bush should have no trouble scoring off Kerry on issue after issue. Politics, however, is a strange business. You never know what will stick. The charge that Bush shirked National Guard duty in Alabama in 1972 and 1973 didn't catch on in the 2000 campaign, but now it has touched off a press feeding frenzy. So maybe even sly and humorous TV ads won't persuade voters of Kerry's shortcomings. Perhaps a more blunt approach will work. Perhaps not.

Bush has one thing, and probably two, to fall back on. The first is the economy. There's every reason to expect growth of 4.5 percent to 5 percent in 2004. But will it be a jobless recovery? Not likely. The Bush economic team projects 2.6 million new jobs this year, wiping out the losses of earlier years. The Federal Reserve figures on 1.5 million to 2 million. The Blue Chip Forecast of top economists pegs job growth at 2 million. They all may be lowballing. In the 1990s, a year with 4 million new jobs was followed by a year in which 3.5 million were created. Several quarters posted job gains of one million. In any case, no president seeking reelection--and unchallenged for his party's nomination--has lost with an economy like this.

There's always Iraq, where everything depends on the turnover of sovereignty on July 1. If it goes well--which means neither civil war nor anarchy--the Iraq issue will remain a positive for the president. If the immediate result in sovereign Iraq is mixed, Bush may still claim success. The recently intercepted memo from terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi suggests anti-American diehards are rapidly losing heart.

Nothing is more pathetic in the Washington political community these days than tremulous Republicans and conservatives who whine about how Bush may lose to Kerry. Well, he might, but don't bet on it. A simple rule is worth recalling: In politics, the future is never a straight-line projection of the present. The media may think polls showing Kerry ahead of Bush in February are predictive of what will happen on November 2, but that's foolishness. The primaries will end in a few weeks and the Kerry phase of the campaign will fade. Unless Bush stumbles badly, the next phase will be his.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.


TOPICS: Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: fredbarnes; gwb2004; weeklystandard
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1 posted on 02/13/2004 9:11:34 PM PST by RWR8189
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To: RWR8189
We're only in February, for Pete's sake. Any man, who wouldn't let RoboFop steal the presidency, isn't going to just idly sit by and let Kerry the Talking Ass have it on a silver platter.
2 posted on 02/13/2004 9:14:37 PM PST by Paul Atreides (Is it really so difficult to post the entire article?)
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To: RWR8189
1984's USA was 20 years of wide-open immigration and media-driven cultural Marxism ago. It exists no more.
3 posted on 02/13/2004 9:21:56 PM PST by dagnabbit
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To: RWR8189
"[W]hy are Republicans and conservatives despairing over Bush's chances of defeating him? The answer is they've succumbed to panic."

Who is despairing? Who is panicking? Maybe Freddie the Beetle is, but I for one am not. I think the Bushies may be panicking, their ridiculous over-response to the National Guard thing is disturbing. We should have gotten 1/2 that response to our reaction to their 1/2 baked "guest worker (whatever!)" plan.

You cannot be a conservative and in a thrall to the mainstream media. You've got to wake up every morning, with a smile on your face and tell the world, if the Times says I'm wrong, then I'm RIGHT. (apologies to Carol King)


4 posted on 02/13/2004 9:22:09 PM PST by jocon307 (The dems don't get it, the American people do.)
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To: RWR8189
I'm not worried. I'm going to help sign up voters and I'm going to ask the City Secretary to put me back on the list of poll watchers. That's all we have to do. If every Freeper took one postive ACTION, all this Dim rhetoric won't even be remembered in Jan.'05.
5 posted on 02/13/2004 9:23:49 PM PST by GalvestonGal.com
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To: RWR8189
"But if Kerry is a target-rich environment, why are Republicans and conservatives despairing over Bush's chances of defeating him?"

Because it has slowly dawned on them that the current occupant of the white house is not a conservative, and they have to expend effort on solidifying the base.

They really shouldn't have to do that but the conservatives have been assaulted with the drip drip of their issues being sold out to the highest bidder, and they are all of a sudden unsure of whether there is any reason to support this man in war if they are being sold out domestically?

6 posted on 02/13/2004 9:24:34 PM PST by dts32041 ( "Always make sure someone has a P-38.")
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To: RWR8189
That's a good article, and fortunately it is not news to the Bush team or the RNC. I don't sense panic coming from either. Bush is at his best when he has been dismissed as defeated. Kerry's support is a mile wide and an inch deep, and when it is time to respond to this current barrage of pin pricks, he won't last long.
7 posted on 02/13/2004 9:26:13 PM PST by Rokke
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To: RWR8189
Kerry's a weenie and it's February. Don't count W out yet.
8 posted on 02/13/2004 9:42:52 PM PST by lilylangtree (Veni, Vidi, Vici)
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To: lilylangtree
Don't count W out yet.

Don't count W out yet period.

Though I know we must fight a good fight, I have every reason to believe that I will be watching George Bush inaugurated next January 20th.

9 posted on 02/13/2004 9:48:32 PM PST by Southflanknorthpawsis
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To: RWR8189
there's a camel with its nose under the tent?
10 posted on 02/13/2004 9:50:52 PM PST by AmericanVictory (Should we be more like them, or they like us?)
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To: RWR8189
I got it! Kerry is Bob Dole!
11 posted on 02/13/2004 9:56:46 PM PST by thoughtomator ("What do I know? I'm just the President." - George W. Bush, Superbowl XXXVIII halftime statement)
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To: RWR8189
Leave it to Fred to bring us all back to sanity.
12 posted on 02/13/2004 9:56:55 PM PST by jmstein7 (Real Men Don't Need Chunks of Government Metal on Their Chests to be Heroes)
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To: dts32041
They really shouldn't have to do that but the conservatives have been assaulted with the drip drip of their issues being sold out to the highest bidder, and they are all of a sudden unsure of whether there is any reason to support this man in war if they are being sold out domestically?

Life's a b!tch then you die.

There must be a utopia somewhere in this world for the malcontents to reside in bliss.

Certainly the USA is far from some peoples definition of utopia, and it is very curious to me as to why their quest for utopia doesn't lead them to a location outside of our borders.

13 posted on 02/13/2004 10:11:10 PM PST by EGPWS
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To: EGPWS
Who said they are Mal contents, maybe they are people who believed in a man, then found out they were sold a pig in a poke.

I remember hearing on this board up until the day of the 2000 election the now current occupant of the white house was a conservative (albeit a compassionate one), so what does he turn out to be a free spender, who believes in bigger government.

Just saying that the campaign staff has realized that the conservative base has been pretty much ignored, and that base needs to be shored up.

BTW vetoing the highway spending bill isn't going to shore up the base.

If I was looking for Utopia, I would name the place I live Utopia and be done with it.

14 posted on 02/13/2004 10:42:23 PM PST by dts32041 ( "Always make sure someone has a P-38.")
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To: EGPWS
None of us, least of the malcontented UNAPPEASA BLES, could live in their delusional idea of UTOPIA!

Suddenly, a whole bunch of once quite dormant old timers are crawling out of the woodwork, just to Bushbash. They should all just go back to their slumbers/hidey-holes!

15 posted on 02/13/2004 10:52:43 PM PST by nopardons
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To: dts32041
so what does he turn out to be a free spender, who believes in bigger government.

That being the case, then why is he doing such a fabulous job of destroying the Democratic party base when their Dogma is based on spending?

16 posted on 02/13/2004 10:55:36 PM PST by EGPWS
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To: nopardons
Suddenly, a whole bunch of once quite dormant old timers are crawling out of the woodwork, just to Bushbash. They should all just go back to their slumbers/hidey-holes!

Or at least convey a workable alternative that is worth pondering.

17 posted on 02/13/2004 10:59:08 PM PST by EGPWS
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To: Paul Atreides; RJayneJ
We're only in February, for Pete's sake. Any man, who wouldn't let RoboFop steal the presidency, isn't going to just idly sit by and let Kerry the Talking Ass have it on a silver platter.

This is my favorite post of the day, by far!

18 posted on 02/13/2004 11:01:43 PM PST by NYCVirago
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To: EGPWS
Is he, seems to me the rat base is solidifying in their hatred of the current occupant of the white house.

The demo rats don't care what he does, cause he stoled the election, and had an opportunity handed to him to become a greater president than their idol the toon.

So they will keep attacking no matter what he does, and he will still try and be a compassionate conservative to then.

19 posted on 02/13/2004 11:12:02 PM PST by dts32041 ( "Always make sure someone has a P-38.")
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To: dts32041
So they will keep attacking no matter what he does, and he will still try and be a compassionate conservative to then.

And then come November, Dubya' will win in a landslide.

Don't think so?

Bookmark this thread and give me a dose of "mud in the face" for my prediction when he loses.

20 posted on 02/13/2004 11:19:21 PM PST by EGPWS
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