Posted on 09/01/2004 11:15:33 AM PDT by Pikamax
Dems Press Kerry to Step Up Bush Attacks
8 minutes ago
By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer
NEW YORK - A tie isn't good enough for some people. Certainly not for anxious Democrats who watched John Kerry (news - web sites)'s tiny lead over President Bush (news - web sites) get swept away in a month of controversy and tactical miscues.
They want the advantage back, even as Bush tries to use his four-day convention spotlight to put some distance between himself and his Democratic rival.
"It's time they get their acts together," Rep. Rahm Emanuel (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., said of the Kerry campaign, joining a chorus of Democratic leaders urging their nominee to improve his political team and step up his attack on Bush.
Kerry and his beleaguered staff are being flooded with advice, much of it contradictory. Some party officials want him to criticize the president for sitting out the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard. Others say that would draw unwanted attention to allegations about Kerry's combat experience when the focus should be on the economy and the Iraq (news - web sites) war.
Kerry chose option No. 2. Addressing fellow veterans in Tennessee on Tuesday, the Democrat said "extremism has gained momentum" on Bush's watch and U.S. policy on Iraq has been an utter failure.
In the broad scheme of things, Bush's advances in opinion polls may be nothing more than a political adjustment — a nudge of the pendulum rather than a big swing. But for some Democrats, the president's rise came as a shock, in part because Kerry's team had bragged that Boston had set the stage for victory.
That was their first mistake.
"It's never a good idea to get people too excited too early," said Bill Carrick, a leading Democratic strategist from California.
After raising expectations, Kerry listened to campaign consultants advising him to let surrogates respond to accusations that he exaggerated his medal-winning wartime service. They wanted him to remain above the fray, and he did, until the accusations from the group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth began tugging him down.
By the time Kerry personally struck back, calling the group a front for Bush spreading "lies about my record," the damage was done. Polls show Bush is now favored over Kerry on questions of who is more qualified to be commander in chief and which candidate is more honest. Immediately after his convention, Kerry led on both questions.
Bush also has erased Kerry's lead on who would best deal with the economy, and has opened a gap on whom voters prefer to lead the war against terror.
Some Democrats said it was a mistake for Kerry to say, under pressure from Bush, that he still would have voted to authorize war in Iraq had he known no weapons of mass destruction would be found there. He needs to distinguish himself from Bush on the unpopular war, they said, not align himself.
Kerry tried to set the record straight Tuesday.
"Our differences couldn't be plainer," he said. "When it comes to Iraq, it's not that I would have done one thing differently, I would've done almost everything differently."
Kerry's anxious allies welcomed the approach. "I'm glad he got the wakeup call," Emanuel said. "And I'm glad it came in August, not October."
In a race this close, the smallest shifts in voter preference send partisans atwitter. Just last week, nervous Republicans were urging Bush to unveil a robust second-term agenda to shift voters' focus from the unpopular war in Iraq. Now, with the convention confetti set to fly, Republicans are temporarily in line while Democrats suffer doubts.
"Bush and his surrogates have been vicious and unforgiving" with the Swift boat claims, said Frank Schreck, a top party fund-raiser from Nevada, "and they have scored a lot of political points."
Schreck wants Kerry to bluntly compare war records with the president. "Why not stand up there and say, `He chose to have his father get him out of harm's way while I volunteered to risk my life?'" The Bush campaign vigorously denies the president used his family's political influence to avoid Vietnam.
Ken Brock, a Democratic consultant in Michigan, said he wants to see Kerry fight back.
"Personally, I'm for somebody coming out and saying while Bush was in the Redneck Riviera, Kerry was picking shrapnel out of his butt," he said. "There are those who want John Kerry to drop his drawers and show America the scars."
Carrick said it would be smarter to focus on issues causing Bush problems.
"My sense is the Swift boat stuff has been a major distraction, to say the least, for the campaign, and they need to get back to hammering him (Bush) every day on the economy and health care and the management of the war," Carrick said.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Ron Fournier has covered the White House and politics for The Associated Press since 1993.
But I thought attacks were "ugly" and wrong. Listen Freepers, the Clinton scum is surrounding Kerry. They are going to use detectives to out the Swifties and repub's private lives, and they are going to stir up hateful racial incidents and issues. Kerry's soul belongs to the worst scum now. And the media will applaud every underhanded move.
Ahem. That would be rice grains, not shrapnel.
PALLBEARERS
Guess who's funeral they're attending?....hehehhe
But, but, but I thought Kerrie was the one who swore there would be no mean nasty attack adds.
Rudy was right,Kerry has time to change his mind again 3 or 4 times.
These guys don't get it. It wasn't Bush, they weren't lies, and the damage was done in 1972.
"Why not stand up there and say, `He chose to have his father get him out of harm's way while I volunteered to risk my life?'"
Oh, sure, go for it. According to Kerry, that makes him innocent of war crimes.
What Democrats have to ask themselves is whether their bench is so thin that their most serious candidate is a guy that hasn't done anything in 20 years. What happened to their heavy hitters? Do they not have any heavy hitters?
Redneck Riviera.
This must be a Michiganian way of trying to court the Alabama voter.
That will be a huge mistake. Everyone is on to the Clinton apparachniks and there are ways to tar them badly for using those techniques. Worked prior to the web. Not now and not since the game is out.
With advisors like this, who needs enemies....
Don't need private eyes. Remember the Michael Moorish Craig Livingstone and the FBI files?
But of course that assumes that the old Clinton gang actually wants Kerry to win...
Rush was just talking about this.
Kerry OTOH, is being evaluated the first time around for CIC, therefore all issues are relevant at this time.
Message to liberals:
It's the candidate, stupid!
"Personally, I'm for somebody coming out and saying while Bush was in the Redneck Riviera, Kerry was picking shrapnel out of his butt," he said. "There are those who want John Kerry to drop his drawers and show America the scars."
I want to see Kerry's home movies from Vietnam.
The home movies he happily shows reporters and guests to the manse including Charles Sennott of the Boston Globe in 1996.
The home movies where he watches his men pour gasoline on a village and raze it.
The shots of Kerry sunbathing next to a bound and blindfolded prisoner.
Jim Robinson posted the original article last Friday night.
("Flashback: 1996 - The Boston Globe: The making of the candidates: JOHN FORBES KERRY
The Boston Globe ^ | October 6, 1996 | By Charles Sennott, Posted on 08/27/2004 10:07:25 PM PDT by Jim Robinson )
Kerry spent 5 hours with the reporter,very proudly showing him his home movies from Vietnam.
" ... the film showed soldiers dousing gasoline on huts in a small village before setting them on fire."
Kerry talks to the reporter about the sickly sweet smell of the burning wood.
Don't recall "It takes a Kerry to raze a village " being shown at the DNC convention.
Page 62 of " Unfit For Command "
quotes George Bates an officer in Coastal Divison 11 describing how Kerry ordered the torching of a small hamlet that was obviously nothing more than a peaceful fishing village.
Kerry ordered the farm animals slaughtered and then Kerry ran around with his Zippo,
" burning up the entire hamlet."
Bates said the village was apolitical, no symbols or flags in evidence.
Bates said that " existing policies, decency and good sense required the boats to simply move on."
Bates believes that Kerry acted " in an almost criminal manner."
Another scene from Kerry's home movie :
" There is Kerry in cutoff shorts working on his suntan next to a Viet Cong prisoner bound and blindfolded."
Didn't Kerry just call for Rumsfeld to resign because of Abu Grhaib ??
By all means, let's keep the focus on Vietnam.
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