Kerry's Brilliant Scheme

Slate ^ | May 26,2004 | Mickey Kaus

[aegiscg47]

Kerry's Brilliant Scheme

The genius of not accepting the nomination. By Mickey Kaus Updated Wednesday, May 26, 2004, at 1:46 AM PT

1:58 A.M. Kerry's Brilliant Scheme: Roger Simon (the U.S. News writer, not the novelist/blogger) thinks Kerry's idea of not accepting the Democratic nomination at his party's convention--in order to accept it a month later--is "too dumb even for politics."

If Kerry does not accept the nomination at his convention, how will he get anybody to watch it? The damn things are dull enough, but a convention without the presidential candidate accepting? Who would tune in to watch such a thing? And by giving up their audience, the Democrats will give up tons of free publicity. [Emphasis added]

I was initially skeptical of the delayed-acceptance idea myself, thinking it too clever by half. But that was before I realized its diabolical tactical brilliance. You see, Kerry's handlers have clearly been busy analyzing reams of scientific opinion research--and they've reached the same conclusion that pollster Scott Rasmussen reached a couple of weeks ago: Senator Kerry loses a few points every time the spotlight focuses on him. Kerry's numbers bounce back when the focus returns to the President. Indeed, Kerry has been virtually invisible on the national radar screen lately--and he's been slowly climbing in the polls.

But the Kerry camp faced what might seem to be an insurmountable challenge: the July Democratic convention in Boston, when the nation's press surely plans to focus on the Democratic nominee, beaming his every word into the nation's living rooms, allowing voters to get to know him and take the measure of his character and personality. Kerry's highly-paid strategists instantly recognized that this would be a disaster for their client. So they have crafted a cunning plan designed to get the TV networks to avoid covering the convention entirely, while the reporters who might otherwise be exposing Kerry to the world are convinced to stay at home. (Give up 'tons of free publicity'? Nothing's more threatening to Kerry than tons of free publicity.) But there's more to the complex plan than just keeping Kerry off the air.

By delaying acceptance of the nomination, Kerry can encourage speculation that he might just turn it down! Why, he may not be the nominee at all! This will result in wild journalistic scenarios about possible "Torricelli options," distracting public attention from Kerry's spirit-sapping persona much as chaff dropped from an airplane causes anti-aircraft missiles to veer off-target. Kerry's vice-presidential pick, in particular, will get star treatment from the press--another plus, since he or she will almost certainly be more appealing than Kerry himself. Perhaps Kerry's lawyers can even figure out a way for his vice-presidential choice to formally accept the #2 slot while Kerry delays--making the vice presidential candidate, in effect, the top standard-bearer and spokesman of the Democrats for a few precious weeks.

The "non-acceptance" gambit is not about campaign money. That's just the cover story! (As if money spent in August made that much difference--a point Simon makes rather forcefully.) Nor is Kerry's seemingly suicidal plan to draw attention to himself by giving a series of high-profile national security speeches over the next 11 days anything but another clever feint. The proof: Just see if he actually says anything memorable!

According to ABC's The Note, Kerry plans "town-hall meetings and discussions with military families, veterans, and fire and police personnel." Heh, heh. No network news producer is going to bump Iraq off the air for those proven coma-inducers! If it seems like the Kerry planners are trying to put Mark Halperin to sleep, maybe that's because they are. A convention without an acceptance speech. "Who would tune in to watch such a thing?" Exactly! The Democratic wizards have tipped their hand. Their secret is out.Their game plan has been revealed to the world! It's to keep the American public from realizing until the last possible moment the grim reality that Kerry really is the Democratic alternative. If they could take Wonkette's advice and have Kerry delay accepting the nomination until, say, November 1, it might actually work. [She said Nov. 3, not Nov.1-ed. Right! Democrats could urge Americans to vote for a nominee to be chosen after the election by U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi!}

12:47 A.M. Dem Panic Watch Bonus: Kerry defenders (and numerous kf e-mailers) like to argue that by historical standards he is in relatively good shape against an incumbent. That's true in many comparisons (e.g. 1992). The template I carry around in my head is the 1988 race, in which a beatable, (semi-incumbent) Bush was challenged by somewhat unexciting, respectable, not widely-known Massachusetts politician. And at this point (May) in the 1988 campaign, Michael Dukakis was ahead by 16 points, 54-38, according to this Gallup poll trend line. If Kerry can't top the charismatic Dukakis, I suggest "panic" is not a completely irrational response among Democrats. ...

11:30 A.M. The three most important words in Bush's Iraq speech? Obviously "No later than." As in The fifth, and most important step is free national elections, to be held no later than next January. Bush didn't endorse Faster Elections, but he left the door wide open. Maybe he does have "an ability to adapt" after all. ...Update: Slate's Eric Umansky points out that the NYT got this point completely backwards, referring to Bush's plan to "move toward a national Iraqi election as early as next January"--as if that were the soonest elections could conceivably be held, as if Bush hadn't actually said something completely different in his address. Is Elisabeth Bumiller reporting the actual speech or her own preconception? ... (The rest of Bush's speech seemed like the same one we've heard before--not the no-B.S. acknowledgement of the occupation's problems that the occasion required. You get the impression Bush is pitching his talk at a level of rhetorical generality that seems presidential--maybe he's been over the wartime speeches of FDR. But FDR wasn't talking to a public that had just seen cell phone shots of the war's horrors or updated polls on what people in the countries we occupied thought of us or daily pessimistic TV interviews about how badly and unexpectedly everything was going. Update: Michael Barone made this point yesterday. Via Instapundit.) ...

11:33 P.M. Dem Panic Watch, Revived! The ABC/WaPo Poll has Bush still tied with Kerry, despite falling approval numbers. "Kerry's having trouble with traction," the polltakers say. You think? ...P.S.: Don't worry Dems! That extra month of funding (caused by delaying the nomination) will save us. Yeah. That's the ticket. ...

Update: But the WSJ Zogby poll has Kerry up in big swing states (Ohio, Penn., Mich.). Go here and click on the "Battleground" link under the ad on the right. (Don't ask me what this feature gains by being "interactive," other than cumbersomeness.). ...

Update 2: Several e-mailers, including the recently reclusive Mystery Pollster, point out that the Zogby survey is an online poll, which I hadn't noticed. Sample comment: "Wasn't Zogby unreliable enough using the telephone (in New Hampshire and Georgia)?" Good point. I smell self-selection bias. You may go back to panicking now. .... See also note the somewhat distancing note on the WSJ's "Overview" page: "the results are weighted, Zogby says, to make them representative of what a poll of the overall U.S. voting population would find." Why "Zogby says"?...Update 3: The new CBS poll does show Kerry with the kind of lead (8 points) you might expect him to have given the news from Iraq. Gallup, though, like ABC, has the race virtually tied. And Rasmussen's Robots have it as tied as they could possibly have it. ...2:17 P.M.

[aegiscg47]

Had a helluva time formatting this blog/article, so my apologies. There is some truth to the fact that Kerry does great when he's out of the public eye. Also, further down I thought it was remarkable that Slate would call into question the Zogby poll, which apparently is based on online polling(?). I think Bush isn't in as much trouble as the press would like us to believe.

[Dems_R_Losers]

LMAO. Kaus is a committed liberal, so this is pretty telling coming from him. Highly amusing. And the liberal media are going to go right along now. They think they have Bush on the run so they are going to start over-hyping all of Kerry's speeches. Watch Kerry's poll number plummet in the next few weeks as a result.

[EllaMinnow]

Kaus is a commited liberal, but one who despises JFinK.

[jocko12]

Dean will be there in case kerry a no show.

[1903A3]

W would never be in trouble if the election where fair.
But that will not be the case.
Every enemy of the US know that Bush as to be defeated for them to win the war
So there will be no limits to what they will do to shove Al-Querry in the white house
Expect the worse

[Boxsford]

Can they really do that? Use the words "Kerry' and 'Brilliant' in the same sentence?

[YaYa123]

I think Kerrey is seriously considering a delayed acceptance. This morning IMUS joked Kerry might wait till after the November election to accept the nomination.

Democrats won't care if Bostonians and democrats are ticked off. They won't worry that no one will watch the televised convention, because they will crowd the stage all nights with Hollywood celebrities, record stars, and their cultural icons.

[EllaMinnow]

I agree.

I thought on Friday that maybe this was a trial balloon, but the Kerry campaign hasn't backed away at all - and he's still playing coy with the press, won't say yes or no.

I think it will backfire on JFinK - big time!