Posted on 02/14/2004 3:37:45 PM PST by Pokey78
Day after day, the media and the Democrats were raising questions about whether George W. Bush had gone AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard three decades ago. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan labeled the charges "gutter politics" and "trolling for trash." Bush tried to ignore them. Bush loyalists dismissed them as old news discounted long ago. Finally, the White House released a massive stack of documents outlining the record of Bush's military service but leaving basic questions still unanswered. Critics, hoping to find scandal, pressed for more. "The charges are false," sighed a frustrated senior Bush adviser. "But this shows that Democrats will go to any lengths and say anything to bring the president down."
Maybe so. But the furor over Bush's Guard service shows something else: The 2004 campaign has started with a vengeance, and everyone has been ordered to take no prisoners. It's also clear that in the weeks since Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry emerged as the likely Democratic presidential nominee, the normally sure-footed White House has been thrown off stride: Bush's job-approval rating has dropped, and a recent Washington Post/ABC survey had Kerry leading Bush, 52 to 43 percent. In another setback, barely half of those polled now believe Bush is "honest and trustworthy," a drop of 7 percentage points since October. The erosion of his credibility was generated mostly by questions about whether he led the nation into war under false pretenses, by arguing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. None have been found.
Kerry's lead may be only temporary, fueled by massive publicity surrounding his victories in the Democratic primaries and admiration for his heavily promoted background as a Vietnam war hero who later turned against the conflict as an act of conscience. But Bush's strategists aren't leaving anything to chance. They are about to launch a counterattack against the veteran senator from Massachusetts designed to raise public doubts about him and knock him off what they hope is a shaky pedestal.
It could be a long campaign. With nearly nine months to go until the election, both sides are already trading barbs, accusing each other of dirty politics and negativity--in the process, getting drawn into what they're denouncing. To wit: Kerry was forced to deny an unsubstantiated rumor about alleged infidelity on MSNBC's Don Imus show last week. And Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, in a speech last week, not only slammed Kerry's political record but also alleged that the Democrats were planning to run a sleazy campaign that would include unsubstantiated claims about Bush's personal life. "It's only February, and they have made clear they intend to run the dirtiest campaign in modern presidential politics," Gillespie said.
Giving a preview of the Bush attack lines, he also blasted Kerry for supposedly being weak on national security, for favoring tax increases, and for reversing his position on many issues over the years, including the war in Iraq. Escalating the conflict, Republican Rep. Randy Cunningham of California charged that Kerry had offended veterans by appearing at antiwar protests three decades ago with actress Jane Fonda. A photo appeared on the Internet, and later in newspapers, showing Fonda at a peace rally with a sober-looking, longhaired Kerry a few rows back; Fonda has denied that she even knew Kerry back then.
To hammer their anti-Kerry points home, the Republicans plan to start a big advertising blitz in key television markets across the country in the next few weeks. The GOP is already road-testing an ad on the Bush campaign Web site, entitled "Unprincipled, Chapter 1" and blasting Kerry for alleged hypocrisy. The spot quotes Kerry condemning "the influence peddlers and the special interests" and goes on to cite a Washington Post report that he took more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years.
The emerging GOP playbook against Kerry:
"The liberal." The Republicans will bill Kerry as an out-of-touch liberal who voted against a balanced budget and opposed increases in defense spending, who fought new weapons systems and attempted to cut funds for the CIA. Kerry's reply: He wanted to divert money to more worthwhile programs.
On domestic issues, Kerry will be targeted for voting against a ban on a procedure that critics call "partial-birth" abortion. And the GOP will shellac him for supporting a rollback of Bush's tax cuts and for backing higher spending on social programs. "These are old ideas that haven't worked," a Bush strategist argues in a refrain that conservatives have used against Democrats for many years. Bush backers say Kerry's programs, when added up, amount to a $1 trillion increase in the deficit over four years. "He's under Ted Kennedy's tutelage," says Ron Kaufman, a longtime Bush family friend and adviser, referring to Massachusetts's liberal senior senator. (Bush set the tone last week by casting opponents of making his tax cuts permanent as proponents of tax hikes.)
"The vacillator." Kerry has changed his position on a variety of issues over the years, and Bush will try to portray him as unpredictable and hypocritical. For instance, he voted for the Patriot Act, which imposes many security restrictions and softens privacy safeguards across American society, but now wants it repealed. He voted to authorize the war on Iraq but now says that the president was deceptive and that the war as Bush conducted it, pre-emptively and without enough international support, was a mistake. Kerry says his shifts were justified by changing circumstances or by new information, or were part of the inevitable compromises required by the legislative process.
"Out of the cultural mainstream." Kerry will be attacked for supporting gun control (although he is a hunter) and for backing abortions funded by taxpayers. Republicans will also attack his opposition to most forms of capital punishment. The Bush team hopes Kerry's hits on the president for favoring the rich and big corporations can be turned against him. "He's practicing class warfare," says a senior White House official. "He's pitting one group of Americans against another. It's been tried before. And I don't think this is what the American people want."
Kerry's response: The Bush campaign is focusing on a tiny slice of his record. He says his centrist credentials are clear--such as in his votes for welfare reform and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Bush will also push for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage--now legal in Kerry's home state. He hopes to force Kerry to choose between angering his gay supporters and alienating culturally conservative voters. Kerry says he opposes gay marriage but supports civil unions that give gays the same legal rights as married heterosexuals.
"The special-interest senator." Kerry has indeed taken money from an array of lobbyists. "John Kerry has left himself open to a charge of hypocrisy because he says one thing and does another," argues Bush chief strategist Matthew Dowd. But Kerry responds that he doesn't take money from political action committees, which, he says, shows him to be a reformer.
Despite the detailed nature of this game plan, it's unclear whether it will change the dynamic anytime soon. "Bush's natural flaws are coming to the surface," says presidential historian Robert Dallek. "He believes the public wants a president who is steadfast, who's unbending about his principles. But the public really wants someone who's realistic, and Bush seems to have unrealistic goals--on the economy, on Iraq. The public actually prefers someone who shifts course if it's warranted." Adds Dallek: "It's not that Bush is a liar. It's that his judgment is not good. What you're dealing with here is a guy who rushes to judgment, who is driven by evangelical principles."
Many observers see a parallel between the emerging Bush-Kerry race and George Herbert Walker Bush's campaign against Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988. Bush the elder was also behind in the early going but defeated Dukakis with a withering attack strategy that billed the Democrat as a "tax and spend" liberal who was weak on defense and soft on crime.
Yet Dowd and other Bush strategists don't think the current race will be a rerun of '88. For one thing, they don't think Kerry will be as susceptible as Dukakis was to gaffes. They expect Kerry to hit back hard when attacked, which Dukakis was hesitant to do. And they give him points for staying on message and not panicking when the heat's on.
Since April 2003, Dowd has been predicting that Bush would lose his stratospheric lead and that the campaign would tighten. He was correct on both counts. Now he's making another forecast: The race will settle into a pattern with Kerry ahead or tied with Bush from week to week, culminating in a dead heat in the final days. That could mean another long wait while the votes are counted on election night.
A vet answered my query, that yes it is wrong as proper military etiquette says that ribbons are only to be worn on the formal dress blues. This is just another example of Kerry's disrespect for our nation, IMHO.
Kerry joined by former Green Beret he saved in Vietnam. Near the bottom of the article it says Kerry also got a Bronze Star.
LOL, bigots by the dozen.
Calling him an East Coast Liberal will not be as effective as anticipated. What needs to be done is point out that, "you can't watch where his mouth goes, but, rather, where his feet go." Focusing on a marked political and personal defect of wanting both sides of every issue (a succesful strategm of politicians)yet voting and acting on a surrepitous, liberal agenda.
IMHO if this is done, he will come unglued. He is not used to any kind of criticism-- especially one that gets to the heart of his devious personality.
In respect to his infidelity, if (as we have been told) the woman says it didn't happen, it didn't happen even if it did. That is the bad news. The good news is that a man who chases a woman 40 years younger than he, has done so many times before and will, many times after. The President and his campaign cannot say anything about this, but there are many other avenues for discussion.
PROS-TI-TUTE: n ~ One who sells themselves for money without regard to morality; adj ~hooker; journalist
Agreed.
I still contend that the only reason the 2000 vote was so close was because of massive fraud in Democrat-only cities such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where there are not even any Republican precinct captains to watch over the polls.
Let's fact it, who is going to stand watch in some of the tough ghetto districts when it's time to physically count up the votes and send them on to the upper tiers.
I know that where I live, there is equality and both sides double check each other's count.
In the deep inner city, I really, really doubt if that check and balance takes place.
I hope you are right. If the new Bush internet video is any guide, our advertising stinks. The ad is just awful -- it's weak, confusing, and the voice-over should not be a woman. The women we need to reach do not listen to other women, they listen to men.
Agreed on all counts. Someone is definitely "out to lunch" here.
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