First line should be "I will try not to break the rules."
I never thought of it that way. I'd wondered also about why the BC04 camp is so quiet on the sidelines. Makes perfest sense. BC04 may be setting up for a grand slam home run. Hope so.
I heard the term "back loaded" used to describe the Bush campaign strategy. Don't peak too soon, wait, wait, wait, and then hit em hard. I guess you could call it a "rope a dope" campaign. Hope it works.
Roves knows Kerry has to go dark on ads after the convention.
Why waste a bunch of money trying to compete with free ads by all media outlets this week?
He has a month a bring Kerry's covention bounce 1-5 points down before the Republican Convention at the end of August.
Alot is going to ride on the debates this year, like it or not the numbers show that people are looking for a reason to buy Kerry but they haven't so far.
The reasons for any decisions are based on multiple considerations. This is obviously one of them, as well as the funding issues and most importantly the fact that when one denies things strongly they tend to stay in the news longer.
From what I understand, the Bush Cheney Ticket will be spending about 70 million dollars over the course of the next six weeks in a massive ad campaign the likes of which we've never seen before.
I think its great so many of us here are "chomping at the bit".....the run up to the RNC Convention should be very satisfying to most of us.
Kerry's "moment" is tonight. Don't begrudge it, folks. Its part of our system. And quite honestly, its very easy to forget one key fact regarding John Kerry while watching the toned down (for the most part) Dem Convention.
He's boring as hell, he has no viable strategy beyond "Bash Bush" which he won't do tonight.
They've had their turn at bat, folks.
Our turn is coming, and we are not required to run away from who we really are.....unlike our opponents on the left. Thats whats going to decide this.
He could have started at least two weeks ago. They wouldn't have been able to shift gears that quickly-- except to Edwards, and that option remains if they want Kerry to drop out due to poor health.
I think Bush has pretty effectively defined Kerry as an aloof flip-flopper who has a lot of money and is out of touch with reality. If you look at the polls, it reflects this.
The fact that John Kerry so far has spent over $100 million and still thinks he hasn't "defined himself" speaks volumes. After hemorraging more money than any Democrat in history, Kerry still doesn't have one supporter in a nation of 300 million people who can say why they're for Kerry. Even his wife and daughter are simply "anti-Bush".
You see this more if you live in a battleground state. At times, you can't turn on the TV without either seeing a Bush ad that makes Bush look presidential, a Bush ad that makes Kerry look ridiculous, or a Kerry ad that tries to "define" Kerry. The campaign that's spinning its wheels is Kerry's.
That's a good post. Thanks for the read. I hope you are right.
I agree with your assessment of what BC04 is doing, disagree about the reason.
Those who are already paying attention have picked a side. The decisive 10% in the middle in swing states is not yet paying attention. Advertising now would be a waste...the voters he needs to reach are currently unreachable.
Furthermore, BC04 has the benefit of running against a candidate who is trying to remain unknown because the more America knows about him the less they like him. As he exposes himself, he damages himself. Witness exhibit A: D Convention. Kerry has introduced and reintroduced himself many times. Did you know he was a Vietnam Veteran? Do you know anything else about him? When an enemy is making a mistake, don't interrupt him. As long as he is running on 4 months 37 years ago, he can't win.
The President will need to keep his powder dry for the McCain ban on free speech in the runup to the election. Furthermore, later in the campaign it will be clear which issues/points/policies/mistakes need to be exploited. Should Bush be running feel good patriotic ads, or should he be attacking Kerry? Not sure which is more valuable at this point...but in a month or two we will know which is necessary to effect swing state 'moderates'.
That said, I do think he should be publicizing the D avoidance tactics...highlight the point that after all these introductions, Kerry hasn't sought fit to tell us anything about himself except Vietnam.
Kerry, for all his supposedly 'electability' can be sunk pretty easily. But we have to wait to figure out which shots will effectively sink him.
I have a simpler thought: A.D.D.
It's only July. In a nation where every film scene is limited to 3 seconds before a cutaway to the next, why waste a bunch of money and emotional energy on folks who couldn't remember 9/11 three months after the fact? We dispose of celebrity and events like our lunchtime fast food...next!
October is still 8 weeks away, and if he can keep Kerry punching the air for at least another month, everyone will start to wonder what Kerry is swinging at. Fun to watch!
A.D.D. is a national disorder that you might as well learn to manage, cuz you're not going to change it with truth, facts, vision, or moral purpose. All you can hope to do is wow 'em with a dazzling display and hope their retinas get burned long enough to remember what was important.
I've already forgotten the point...oooh! look! A Shiny Object!
Nothing Kerry has done differs dramatically from what Bill Clinton did, and the voting public overlooked it. You are forgetting that a growing plurality of voters now thinks there is such a thing as a free lunch, and Bush has done absolutely nothing to dispel the notion. In fact, he has encouraged it with more spending on education, prescription drugs, aids relief for Africa, jobs for illegal immigrants, tariffs for the manufacturing workers, etc.
So the campaign has come down to who will hand out the most goodies to constituents in battleground states and very little else. Bush will basically campaign on the notion that while Kerry talks the talk of a socialist, Bush has actually delivered the goods. And he will be correct.
Unfortunately, those of us who believe in less government will be left out in the cold, but we are lemmings who get a sense of empowerment out of knowing our party's guy is in office. It's like having your team win the Super Bowl, after all.
FYI..both political parties have provisions in there by-laws as to what to do were a candidate to die or become disabled, (or withdraw) before the election..the national committe would meet via phone to pick a replacement...it is NOT automatically the VP candidate, though that would be the strongest presumption...we had discussed this at great length here a while back..under the idea that Hillary would try to engineer a way to move kerry out..becuase of the logistics involved in printing, mailing ballots, etc..throughout the country..the general consenus was that the LATEST the Dems could try to engineer a NJ type putsch would be mid-September..., and Labor Day is far more likely...remember...a great many voters choose absentee ballots...it sounds like a fund exercise, but logistically it's almost impossible... they'd lose far more than they might gain..
I expect to see some of the DNC "talking points" being highlighted in contrast to what the known truth is - the Bush folks are going to start to whittle away and then take off bigger and bigger chunks as the election nears. I fully expect that they also expect the Dims to go really nuts and are prepared to take advantage of that too.
My theory - Rove has been bought by THK and is really working for JFK, not GWB. Why else would he be doing such a sh#t job?
For example, Some obscene high number of people still think we are in a recession, That's a failure on Rove & co and all national elected Republicans.