Posted on 07/27/2004 5:01:23 AM PDT by prairiebreeze
John Kerry's election team is to suspend advertising during August, opening itself to what it expects will be a barrage of attacks from the Bush-Cheney campaign.
After a debate with his senior advisers, Mr Kerry has opted to "go dark" in the weeks after the Democratic National Convention to conserve limited federal funds for the weeks immediately before the November 2 election.
The decision was a "risky step", Mary Beth Cahill, the Kerry campaign manager, acknowledged yesterday.
The Kerry campaign hopes that the convention, which opened in Boston yesterday amid boasts of unprecedented party unity and discipline, will help introduce Mr Kerry to an electorate that feels it knows little about him.
The Democrats will still be able to get a pro-Kerry message on the air in the coming weeks, as the party and allied groups can still buy airtime. But the campaign is not going to be able to control the message or the media spending directly.
Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said he expected the well-funded Democratic National Committee and the shadow political groups which have raised tens of millions of dollars to see Mr Bush defeated in November will be able to spend throughout August on advertising.
"I do not think we will be deprived of their message," he said.
Mr Kerry was yesterday campaigning in Florida, the state that decided the 2000 election and is likely to be pivotal again in 2004.
Tomorrow, he arrives in his home town of Boston to accept his party's nomination for president on Thursday.
Once he has been formally nominated, the Kerry campaign will be given $75m in federal funds. The law requires that the candidate then spend only that money between the close of the convention and election day.
George W. Bush, too, will be limited to spending $75m in federal funds, but as the Republican National Convention is at the end of August, the Bush-Cheney campaign can continue to spend its war-chest for a further five weeks.
Mr Kerry's aides have debated whether to spend steadily across the 95 days between the convention and election day or hold back. Mr Kerry had even considered coming to Boston for the convention but not formally accepting the nomination, so as not to be bound by election finance laws.
"We have a 13-week general election, they have an eight-week general election," Tad Devine, senior adviser to Mr Kerry, told reporters yesterday at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
The Kerry campaign is hoping that the convention will help people gain a better understanding of Mr Kerry's personal story, which he will reinforce on a 21-state tour through the summer.
Gosh I hope this happens. I hope America hears all about Kerry's questionable Purple Hearts, his anti-defense voting record, his pro-Hanoi agenda, his paper-shredding activities when he chaired the POW Special Senate Committee, his role in decimating US intel services and de-funding of the military, his VVAW attendance at the meeting where Senatorial assassinations were discussed. Yes, I certainly hope that these things and many more, get placed before the attention of the voters.
Prairie
I'm sure they'll still get their free media support.
"President Bush, following a long-standing tradition, will keep himself out of the public eye during the week of the convention."
Fine. But then, 5 minutes later, Andrea Mitchell made some snide comment that the Democrats were in Boston, talking about moving the country forward -- and George W. Bush was (as usual!) on vacation in Crawford acting like everything was fine.
I hate the rats.
Prairie,
I PRAY that the items that you mention, and more, are put out there for the voters to see. For some reason I don't think that it will though. It would be an aweful shame if it dosn't.
LOL
I thought the headline read that Kerry was going DORK for a month.
I thought, 'How would we tell the difference?'
Someone told me that the Kerry campaign and the Bush campaign both agreed to use only federal funds after the conventions. Is this true?
How will the Olympics affect campaign spending in August?
Don't forget their subsidiaries like Move0n.Org etc with their unlimited warchests
I believe it's the law that only Fed funds are used after nomination, someone speak up if I'm mistaken. That's why sKerry thought about not accepting the nomination at the convention, so he'd have more time before he had to use only Fed money. Now, looks as if he'd just "going dark" instead.
Prairie
Translation : We do not expect much of a bump, and as a result we will "go dark" and use that to explain away the sudden drop back from whatever bump we get. On top of that, we will save this money to unleash a huge barrage at Bush to try and blunt what looks to be a very large bump from the RNC.
Then the Kerry Campaign quiet period is when the Bush Campaign should really go rough on them. Kerry supporters would then have the options of looking weak or coming out to spend their money earlier than they hope to.
If your a Democrat everything has gone to hell in a handbasket, no matter what charts, graphs, and polls say. For everyone else in this country, everything is fine and getting finer.
I'd like to see the Kerry campaign "go dark" forever. I think after November, they will.
It's like the Democrats in Boston, on the one hand pitching fits that security is so damn tight, they can't move about, and on the other hand saying Ashcroft and Bush aren't doing enough to make this country safer.
Dork and Dorkier
I'm just going to turn off my Television Sept-Oct.
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