The only time trashing the other parties candidate works is in a primary. And it only works then when your primary opponents have no positive agenda. The Democrats have no agenda except defeat Bush. That will not work.
The democrats are trying the same thing that Gray Davis used on Simple Simon in California. If they can just get Bush to respond in kind they win or at least get a draw. Because when two candidates get in a nasty fight the center sees no difference and doesn't vote at all. In a normal Governors race in California, 10 million people vote, but Simon trashing Davis and Davis trashing Simon resulted in only 6 million turning out and Davis of course won.
Dirty vicious campaigns serve the same purpose that trash talk in a football game. They trash talkers hope to make the better team loose its cool and make dumb mistakes that turn the center off.
Trashing your opponent is a desperation tactic. It was first tried against Thomas Jefferson in 1800. It did not work. It was tried in 1838 against Andrew Jackson. It did not work. It was tried in 1860 and 1864 against Abraham Lincoln and it did not work. In fact that nasty campaign tactic is a failure as long as the candidate attacked does not respond in kind.
Swing voters decide every election. And swing voters vote for the man they like who will do the most for them. Attacking Bush will not do anything for those swing voters.
Many if not most elections are decided by a popularity contests. It is hard to be popular when you spend your time trashing others.
Bush will win the popularity contest hands down... just has he did against Ann Richards in Texas in 1994. Ann brought up the military record, his business contacts, and constantly called George W. Bush by the name of Shrub.
She thought putting him down would really work. Democrats laughed like hell, when Bush constantly called Ann Richards ... Governor Richards. He never once trashed her. She trashed him and he was very courteous in return.
Of course after the Election he got to call her ex Governor Richards and that really ticked her off.
Bill Clinton never played to his base. He did not Trash either George H.W. Bush or Bob Dole. Clinton knows how to win elections. So does George W. Bush. Kerry and the rest of the Dmeocrats don't know any more than you do about winning.
I look at it, and I see the same thing. Kerry dramatically threw his claim to military valor away onto the WH lawn--yet after that leadership by Kerry we are supposed to think of GWB as a slacker if the reporters and other Democrats can insinuate that Bush didn't cross every "t" and dot every "i" in the Air National Guard??? By the logic Kerry promulgated at the time, Bush was wrong not to throw monkey wrenches into the works of every plane on the base!!Bush only gave up the bottle and got serious twenty years ago--and he's spent the past decade of that time as governor of Texas and president of the United States. People don't become president at all if they don't attain national office within 15 years of becoming a senator or governor; Kerry is old news in his twentieth year in the Senate. And people like executive experience in their presidential candidates; I know of no case of a senator winning election to the presidency over a former governor, never mind a sitting president.
All that screams "Landslide!" And then there is the cold reality that Bush won by 2 electoral votes in '00, and by about 500 votes in FL . . .
While I agree, I continue to pray for President Bush and our country on a daily basis that we will be graced with another 4 years of Bush leadership.