During those years in the Senate Kerry was far from inactive. He kept a low profile while dogging Reagan and Bush I. He kept his ideological cast but provided no great target for a future race for the White House. He was watching every race to see what went wrong and what went right. You can recognize themes from past races in every speech. He learned from Clinton to go into your weaknesses early and define them before your opponent can. What he speaks loudest about is what he considers his weakest points.
His campaign is completely formulistic. What is formulistic is predictable. What is predictable is defeatable, but not by a constrained approach. He has already accounted for the expected rebuttal.
There are things that the Bush campaign just cannot say and will not say. Normally you would expect Republican Senators to realize this and step up, say what needs to be said and give the campaign some running room in the middle, but they haven’t. If they go too far outside they run the risk of someone saying something really stupid.
This ad is perfect. These are credible guys with a credible message. They are a pinprick in a large balloon. Kerry is worried. He has known that these guys were out there. I have no doubt that the 32 page response was prepared a long time ago.
Better yet. this is a water cooler ad. It is being shown and talked about in the news segments. It’s effectiveness is magnified. Every person who sees it is going to discuss it with ten more around the water cooler. It may not affect the polling numbers but it has reset the dynamics of the race. It’s a winner.