Posted on 05/01/2004 2:11:59 AM PDT by Prince Charles
Kerry getting Gored?
ELECTION 2004: Democrats fear 2000 deja vu: Kerry candidacy looks like Al Gore's
An AP News Analysis By RON FOURNIER AP Political Writer
WASHINGTON -- It's a recurring nightmare for Democratic strategist Tony Coelho -- the party's presidential candidate portrayed as a flip-flopping opportunist, ill-served by a strife-torn staff. It happened in 2000, when Coelho ran Al Gore's campaign. Now, it's happening to John Kerry.
Democratic leaders fear he's getting "Gored."
"What the Kerry people don't understand is, it's succeeding," Coelho said.
Scores of Kerry supporters like the former California congressman say their initial response is to remain hopeful, based on polls showing the presumptive nominee tied with President Bush while the Democratic Party is better funded and more united than in 2000. But they are worried about history repeating itself.
"No question, it's a rerun of 2000," said Donna Brazile, campaign manager for the former vice president's 2000 race.
"Every Sunday, Team Bush goes in overdrive by outlining the upcoming week's attacks on Kerry. It's followed by paid advertisements and assigning top-notch surrogates," Brazile said. "This is the exact moment in 2000 when Gore was seriously damaged as the Bush team painted the former vice president as a "serial exaggerator."'
Republicans are pressing the same points against Kerry, mocking him at every turn.
"How many times can a flip-flop flip before a flip-flop becomes a flop?" Bush spokesman Steve Schmidt asked in a recent news release.
Kerry has given the GOP plenty of fodder, including:
-- Voting against the Persian Gulf War in 1991, in favor of the use of military force in Iraq in 2002 and against final passage of an $87 billion reconstruction bill for Afghanistan and Iraq. Explaining that he supported an amendment that would have provided the aid by rolling back Bush's tax cuts, Kerry said, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." The Bush campaign turned the quote into an ad.
-- The Massachusetts senator, who supports higher automobile fuel economy standards, told reporters last week that he doesn't own a gas-guzzling sport utility vehicle. Asked whether his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, had a Suburban at their Ketchum, Idaho, home, Kerry put a razor-fine point on his answer: "The family has it. I don't have it."
-- For years, the decorated Vietnam War veteran has said that he threw his ribbons over a fence at the Capitol during a 1971 anti-war protest, not his three Purple Hearts, Bronze Star and Silver Star. However, in a tape of a television interview Kerry gave after the protest, he suggested that he also threw his medals.
Three decades later, Kerry accused the White House of drumming up a "phony controversy" to change the subject from turmoil in Iraq and a shaky U.S. economy. Supporters say the strategy is even broader -- the White House is throwing every conceivable flip-flop or character flaw at Kerry's feet, just as they did to Gore.
Early in the 2000 campaign, Republicans accused the former vice president of taking credit for inventing the Internet, a claim Gore never quite made. Bush's team also jumped on a suggestion by Gore that he and his wife were the models for the novel "Love Story." The vice president later said he was wrong, and chalked it up to a miscommunication.
Neither incident alone ruined Gore's image, but Republicans planted seeds of doubt harvested late in the campaign by Bush.
During a fall debate, Gore said he accompanied Federal Emergency Management Agency director James Lee Witt to a Texas fire zone. Gore's campaign later said he inspected the fires, but not with Witt.
It was a small mistake, but big enough for GOP vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney to say in September 2000 that Gore "has failed to speak the truth" about all sorts of things.
Sound familiar?
"They're painting Kerry as a liberal, and it's succeeding. They're painting him as somebody who flip flops, and they're succeeding," Coelho said, adding that the race is far from over because Kerry has time to show voters his own biography and character. The campaign plans to unveil new biographical ads as early as next week.
Coelho left Gore's campaign in June of 2000, citing health problems. The staff was torn by rancor.
Several Gore advisers who survived that mid-year purge now work for Kerry, including Bob Shrum, with whom Coelho clashed. Shrum fought with Kerry's first campaign manager, Jim Jordan, and first ad-maker, Jim Margolis. Both are gone.
Coelho said he's feels good about Kerry's prospects, even if the campaign structure makes him uncomfortable. Several other Democrats expressed similar views, but only on condition of anonymity.
A senior official at the Democratic National Committee said that while Karl Rove is clearly running Bush's campaign, Kerry's team appears rudderless.
Kerry has said he won't be a "wishy-washy, mealy-mouthed" Democrat, pledging to challenge GOP attacks in a way that 1988 Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis never did. But he may want to worry more about comparisons to Gore.
"I do think Republicans are trying to Gore him," said Waring Howe Jr., a Democratic leader in South Carolina.
EDITORS: Ron Fournier has covered national politics or the White House since 1993
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Pretty easy thing to do since Kerry is giving them the paint brush and canvas to do it by his voting record and foot in mouth disease problem
For example, all Vice-President Albert Gore had to do after being lied to by perjurer-in-chief Slick Willie, is condemn Slick's actions, not necessarily the person. Instead Gore blames Republicans.
For the very few remaining dyed-in-wool Democrat voter that demand honest politicians, Raplh Nader siphons off their voter. Or they just don't vote.
Donna Brazil, Tony Coelho. Terry McAlluff, et al, are examples of what happened to the successful "dog ate my homework" punks we knew as kids. They're today's democRat loyalists.
Hmm......Where's $hrillary. :))
That is precisely what the Dims should be worrried about.
The maxi-Clintons, both of them, lack brains and charm.
Democrats are led by someone who can't even take responsibility for what's in his own driveway. Passing the buck was Clinton's most salient and irritating character flaw and it would prove to be once again downright dangerous in a Commander in Chief.
So you hang on to the ones who sunk the last boat, while the ones who might have helped float it are jettisoned.
Good strategery !
The Ballad of Senator Kerry (Slip-sliding-away)
Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away
Whoah and I know a man, he came from my hometown
He wore his passion for Vietnam like a thorny crown
He said Teresa, I live in fear
My mistakes are so overpowering, I'm afraid that I'll disappear
Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away
I know the widow, (who) later became his wife
These are the very words she uses to describe her life
She said a good day ain't got no rain
She said a bad day is when he's near her, mainly he's just a pain
And then she thinks of things that might have been.
Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away
And I know a father who had a son
He longed to tell him all the reasons for the things he'd done
He went on and on, just tryin' to explain
But the more he talked the worse things just became
Then he turned around and he headed home again
Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away
Whoah God only knows, God makes his plan
The information's unavailable to the mortal man
We work our jobs, we collect our pay.
But some believe they're better and are on a gold highway,
When in fact - they're just slip sliding away
Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away
Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away
(repeat and fade)
Original © Simon & Garfunkel
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