Posted on 09/15/2004 8:04:10 AM PDT by NorCoGOP
OXFORD, Miss. -- Following a miserable month of August that concluded with the Republican National Convention in New York City, the Kerry campaign knows they face an uphill battle if John Kerry is to unseat President Bush.
The summer began with stories of prison scandals, increasing casualties in Iraq and rather lack-luster economic numbers that gave Kerry an early lead in the polls while Bush's approval numbers were in the low 40s - the same area that Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush were sitting at this point. They went on to lose their re-election bids.
That was then, and this is now. Following the convention, all major polls have the president's approval rating in the low 50s - the same area that Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were sitting in the summer before their re-election. They, of course, went on to win rather easily.
Kerry knows he has a lot of work to do if he is to get back in the race. In recent weeks, Kerry has made many changes to his campaign staff. The Kerry campaign can try to spin this, but the bottom line is Kerry knew his campaign was headed in the wrong direction.
All the new staff has done is give Kerry yet another position on Iraq. He is now against the invasion.
There are many reasons for Kerry's slide in the polls over the past month. While Bush was all over the airways with ads, Kerry tried to save money and relied heavily on independent groups to carry his message, whatever that message may be.
Also, Kerry failed to act quickly in response to the Swift Boat ads attacking his Vietnam record; attacks that have significantly turned away veterans from supporting Kerry.
Those attacks put Kerry on the defensive and have forced him to answer questions about his service during the war and his protest after he returned home. This has prevented Kerry from talking about issues such as health care and Social Security- issues that usually favor Democrats.
Because of his sliding poll numbers, Kerry has altered his message at campaign rallies. Literally minutes after Bush wrapped up his convention speech, Kerry was on the stump making outrageous claims that are representative of the Howard Dean-Michael Moore wing of the party.
Instead of moving on from the late '60s, early '70s, Kerry continued to go straight after Bush for his service in the National Guard and Vice President Cheney for his draft deferments, calling the Bush-Cheney team unfit for command.
Almost working in accordance with the Kerry campaign, CBS's "60 Minutes" did a special on supposedly new documents that question Bush's National Guard service.
Soon after the story broke, many document authenticators and former military officers who examined the documents came to the conclusion that they were forged. CBS continues to stick by its initial report.
Assuming it turns out that these documents are indeed fake, as it appears they will, this will be just another setback for the Kerry campaign that is stuck in the '70s.
If Kerry continues down the path of bashing Bush's military service, insisting the economy is horrendous (even though the national unemployment rate is at 5.4 percent and over 1.5 million jobs have been added in the past year) and maintaining the belief that Iraq is a disaster, and it was the "wrong war at the wrong time," his poll numbers will continue to fall.
Kerry's staffers continue to remind the American people that Kerry has come from behind to win political contests in the past. In 1996, he erased an early deficit to barely beat off a challenger for the U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts. The only question is, what was a two-term Democrat from Massachusetts doing in a tight Senate race?
Then in the democratic primaries, Kerry eliminated Howard Dean's early lead to win his party's bid for presidency.
Dean is not exactly as smooth of a politician as George W. Bush, and chances are, Bush will not go on stage and start screaming.
Coming out of the Democratic National Convention, it appeared as though this was Kerry's race to win, and it would take a miracle for the president to turn it around. Now, it appears as though it will take a disaster for the president to lose.
From the College Front PING
The kids at Ole Miss continue to impress me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.