Posted on 08/31/2004 8:14:40 PM PDT by Nascardude
Tuesday, August 31 2004 KERRY IS IN CRISIS: Roger L. Simon is right, a shake up by the Kerry camp at this point in the race is tantamount to an admission of crisis. Mickey Kaus is right, too: Joe Lockhart ain't gonna come riding in and save the day.
Meanwhile Charlie Cook decided it was time to walk back his rather bold prediction from three weeks ago that this was Kerry's race to lose: "It really is pretty amazing how fast the conventional wisdom can change." You don't say? Maybe it shouldn't have been conventional wisdom in the first place.
Honestly, I still don't understand how or why Cook and Sabato decided to go out on a limb like that before the GOP convention. It was like two respected Vegas bookies deciding to change the odds of a game at halftime because one team was up a point or two. It just never made sense.
For the record, I'm not convinced the movement to Bush is all the work of the Swiftees, though they've certain played a part. But even if it is, it's not like the damage they've inflicted on Kerry should come as a big surprise to anyone who follows politics closely.
The Swiftees held a press conference way back in early May - even if it did get close to zero attention from the mainstream press. Here's what I wrote about the Swiftees at the time:
As far as politically damaging attacks go, this (the Swift Boat Veterans) should rank right up there among the most potent ones imaginable. It would certainly be a political disaster of thermonuclear proportions if all of George W. Bush's former commanding officers in the National Guard condemned his fitness to be CIC.
But I suspect this story won't get very much play (except in the blogosphere) and whatever attention it does generate in the mainstream press that might potentially influence swing voters in battleground states will be seriously diluted by Kerry's massive $25 million ad buy that began yesterday touting his service in Vietnam.
In other words, the Veterans' press conference and letter may not have much of a short-term impact on Kerry's numbers.
But it will be a different story after Labor Day when the Bush camp puts clips from the letter and footage from the press conference into an ad of their own and spends enough money in those same battleground states to make it hurt.
How will Kerry be able to effectively rebut this letter when the time comes? Very good question.
As it turns out, the answer to the question is "not effectively at all," which is why the Kerry campaign seems to be teetering on the verge of a meltdown. - T. Bevan 6:00 pm Link | Email | Send to a Friend
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I doubt that will happen. Bush is going to be forward looking, as is the Bush campaign. OTOH, anybody else is fee to make some hay with the Swiftee's material!
That is one funny, yet spot-on list!
Wasn't that interesting on Sunday when Hill talked nonstop about what she thought on issues, ignoring Kerry. Plus, she's been taking speech lessons. Not a single 'uh, or ah', not one 'ya know' in any of her appearances. If it walks like a duck....quacks like a duck...
Rats are grooming Harold Ford for big things.
LOL, yes Hillry was showing JFKerry how to be "commander-in-chief, while he was waiting for the wind to blow. The "timing" for her was toooo perfect.
It doesn't matter who is in charge of the campaign. The campaign will continue to be in trouble if Kerry doesn't stand up in front of the press and the cameras and take questions. He is a lying coward. He keeps sending out people to talk for him and his campaign because he doesn't have the courage to do so himself. The people Kerry sends out can't stick to one story, much like himself. The American public is seeing firsthand what kind of a man Kerry really is and they don't like it.
**a shake up by the Kerry camp at this point in the race is tantamount to an admission of crisis.**
Got to love this line!
Will John Freakin' Kerry be able to keep Joe Lockhart (the Huntz Hall of politics) awake? He slept while Air Force 1 left with Billy Clintooooooon while in the Soviet Union!
Now there's an insight of earthshattering proportions.....NOT! Maybe not Swiftboat funding, but one thing is certain: as soon as Edwards was announced as the Veep, we could be certain that the Clintons would be trying, oh so hard, to "help" Kerry. The first sign was the Sandy Berger stuff, and who knows just how much has been going on behind the scenes. A Kerry win without Hillary on the ticket was always Hillary's worst political nightmare.
"Rats are grooming Harold Ford for big things."
-- Ford will probably pick up Frist's seat if he retires in 2006 as expected, but I don't see more than that. The only thing the RAT base likes about him is his skin color. If the democratic party collapses over the next decade as I expect and a new party emerges (it's happened before in US history), Ford would probably be key in that.
I see Blue Dogs joining up with PaleoCon Buchananites and forming a new party. If you ever read Buchanan's "American Conservative", they take more and more left-ish views all the time. We'll have a Socialist Democratic Party, a Conservative Republican Party, and Centrist Populist Party. The only thing stopping such a crack-up of american politics are social issues. But there's nothing that says they'll never "agree to disagree".
Well, maybe the media will keep quiet about his crooked family.
Why groom Jr. when you have Hillery?
Uhmm.....Rush has shown much respect to the swifties. Rush has had O'Neill on and has been covering this issue quite a bit. All he is implying is that some of the people giving money to the swifties might be Clintonnista's. I am not buying that myself and I don't think Rush does either. But he isn't saying that the swifies are Clinton operatives.
Folks we have to think ahead a bit. Lets look at the race in 2006, what we have to do is encourage the dems that they are smarter than us, they deserve to win, that if they just keep trying harder by doing the same thing they could win.
Because what we all know it is their pride that is kicking their @ss. Every time, all the time. If someone comes along and does what gingrich did, then we will have a worthy apponent. ( well maybe not) But they will be more of a threat.
I guess as long as Bill and Hill are in the picture and use their money draw to bribe their way into playing by their rules they will lose again and again.
They can groom him all they like. As it stands now he is just another well know house democrat. Till he wins a seat higher than congressmen it doesn't matter. The landscape has changed quite a bit since Gore was a Senator. Ford just might have settle for his position as congressman for life.
I don't know. I tend to think it was the book that changed everything. The original press conference was just a bunch of partisan ingrates to the "mainstream" media; anyone can rent a room in the National Press Club, and all sorts of nutjobs do just that every day, in the hopes that a few reporters will be bored enough to stop by and give them a little coverage. But the book was hundreds of pages' worth of detailed charges against Kerry, and it gave the bloggers and conservative media something tangible to coalesce around, until the noise got so loud that the Media Wing of the Democratic Party couldn't ignore it any more.
I don't get to watch Rush, so I appreciate the comments. For background, I'm tired of turning on FoxNews and seeing someone dismissing the Swift Boat Vets with off-hand comments that denegrate them. Their service record is certainly no worse than John 'I gotta scratch - decorate me' Kerry.
I think it was on 8/15 Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday declared the Kerry campaign 'damaged'.
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