Kerry delivers low blow (serious gaffe with undecided voters)

The Oklahoman ^ | October 16 | Mark Green

[Former Military Chick]

WASHINGTON - Political consultants get six-figure salaries to figure out what turns voters for or against a candidate. Political scientists write books and scholarly papers about campaigns, focusing on the strategies that produced victory -- and defeat. You don't need an advanced poli-sci degree to know that the run for the White House depends on a couple of key voting groups: each candidate's ideological base and independents or swing voters, who often are undecided until the last minute. Appealing to both at the same time is tricky business.

The just-completed presidential debates illustrate the point. President Bush and Sen. John Kerry were faced with firing up base voters while attracting independents. The debates were not so much Bush and Kerry jousting with each other as with trying to give these very different groups of voters what they want to hear.

Before the first debate Kerry's campaign was like a jalopy running on four under-inflated tires. The senator's debating skills helped him revive Democrats who were starting to worry about their man's incoherent campaign to that point. Kerry was helped because it's not hard to make an incumbent play defense. He also was helped when Bush didn't bring his A game to the first encounter.

Bush rallied in the second debate. He was aggressive and energetic. Even if Kerry still outpointed him in a pure debating sense, Bush showed a strong pulsd ane rallied his supporters.

The trouble for both men is that the red meat craved by their most dyed-in-the-wool loyalists turns off most swing or independent voters. It makes sense: If they liked that kind of political diet, they wouldn't be swing voters.

That's why both candidates played more of a balancing act in the final debate. Neither ventured much into the sharp rhetoric that sours unattached voters who a) haven't been paying much attention to politics; and b) look for reasons or factors other than the usual campaign noise upon which to base their decision.

"Likeability" is one. A candidate might not be able to argue his way around Social Security or immigration policy, but if he's someone you'd like to have in your home for supper, that's another matter. This is how Bush could, on some scorecards, lose all three debates on points yet still win on style and personality. We're electing a president, not the captain of the college debate team.

The third debate saw both men appealing more to the undecideds. Both got chances to be soft and sensitive, causing their base supporters to flip back and forth between the debate and the baseball playoff games. Both had to make the appeal to the narrow swath of voters who, when added to their base, will push them to victory.

I said all that to say this. John Kerry's use of Vice President Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, in one of his answers might be the kind of serious gaffe with undecided voters that could spoil what otherwise has been a strong, home-stretch run by the challenger's campaign.

For all of Kerry's crisp answers, the blizzard of policy statistics and his efforts to appear presidential, could 30 seconds that produced audible groans among observers bite him?

The question was whether each candidate believed that homosexuality is a choice. Bush, who went first, gave an honest "I don't know," and talked of the need to treat everyone fairly.

Kerry started with some stock verbiage. "We're all God's children," he said, soberly. He paused ever so slightly and tried to add some depth, a personal touch, to his answer. "And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was. She's being who she was born as."

Reportedly, a focus group of undecided voters organized by Republicans, which had been moving Kerry's way throughout the evening, was stopped cold by the remark.

The next day Cheney and his wife, Lynne, blasted Kerry for exploiting their daughter. "I am speaking as a mom, and a pretty indignant mom," Lynne Cheney said. "This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick."

Political trick or not, it crossed a line. Kerry needlessly used the daughter of his opponent's running mate as a gimmick in a debate answer without offering any "foundation" -- a courtroom term former prosecutor Kerry knows well -- that he has any idea what Mary Cheney thinks or feels.

It looked like a low blow, a cheesy ploy to suggest that Cheney and Bush are hypocrites or perhaps to deflate evangelicals in the GOP base. Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of Kerry's running mate, made matters worse the next day by saying the Cheneys' reaction looked to her like they felt "shame" over their daughter's lifestyle. Ouch!

The matter is a misstep, a groaner, literally. Big one or small one? Could be big, underscoring Kerry's likeability problems. They say undecided voters can turn one way or the other based on tie color. Stay tuned.

Green is national editorial writer for The Oklahoman.

[Former Military Chick]

Excellent read!

[Gibtx]

this is a big deal ....... i was in a dealership getting my truck fixed and over heard ladies in the accounting dept talking about the debates.... they all had just started talking about and what came out is stunning to me

the love with which W talked about Laura... the camelot story ... the loving father..... they said they could tell it was the real thing he was talking about.....

Wow.........

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Important Note from 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub

The following "post" has been put on 2 different servers.
As new data is added between now, and Nov 2, it will be updated on the servers.
That way you can just copy and paste the url(s) to your contacts.

http://tonkin.spymac.net/hanoikerry1.html

There is a backup site
if the 1st url is unavailable.

http://stophanoikerry.150m.com/



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[Theresawithanh]

It is a great read. I saw the replay of the debate, and when Kerry made that remark, I felt he had gone way over the line. Didn't realize others thought so, too, especially the crowd who hang on to everything Kerry says, and who can understand just exactly what it is he is saying, or at least say that they can.

What a remark about voters deciding on a candidate because of tie color. He may have been using it as an example, but people who decide who to vote for in that manner should NOT vote!

[Grendel9]

Well, even a died-in-the-wool democrat would have to admit that compared to Bush 41's nonchalant act of looking at his
watch during the debate, Kerry's faux pas is pretty deep
doodoo...with stench!

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

the love with which W talked about Laura... the camelot story ... the loving father..... they said they could tell it was the real thing he was talking about..... Wow.........

That is the clincher!

I sent the following letter to all my friends and my local paper:

To the editor:

The question was easy.

Tell us about your wife.

Tell us about your wife?

What truly astounded me was how Kerry completely avoided the question, given the great opportunity to say something nice about his wife in front of a huge national audience.

Teresa has had a bad time of it during the campaign.
Her use of street-corner language definitely took some of the blush off the rose as to her sophistication and intellect.

The campaign had tried to keep her quiet after several temper flares.

What better chance did Kerry have to resurrect her standing?
After all, Teresa has been very active in a multitude of important charitable projects.

George Bush had just told the story of how he and Laura first met.

His love for her was so plain to see!

He actually got a little goofy, looking like a teenager with a crush.

Imagine Teresa sitting in the front row, watching all this love and anticipating her husband's response to such a soft ball question.
A question that even Joe Sixpack in Milwaukee could hit out of the park.

And how utterly disappointed must she have been when Kerry decided to talk about his mother instead.

We all know about wife - mother-in-law rivalries.

A mother knows her son best.

"Integrity, integrity, integrity" she said, like she knew something about his dark side.

Kerry's national disrespect for Teresa was outrageous and gave the viewers of the debate a small glimpse into his cold soul.

When given the stage, how could he not say a single positive thing about her?

I don't get it!

It's obvious to me that the Kerry's marriage is another Bill/Hillary cliffhanger, at best.

[ScottM1968]

Hello YachtClub,

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but when every post you make has virtually the same stuff each time, I have to wonder what you are trying to prove.

Is there a way that you could scream your 15 pages of anti-Kerry stuff in your own forum? We all agree with you already and having to wade through it all just to get to someone's actual opinion about the posted news story (rather than your rubber-stamped rhetoric) is frankly frustrating.

Please rant on your own elsewhere.

[dagnabbit]

What wonderful irony if Bush's margin of victory could be attributed to a young lesbian woman.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

This could be the crucial gaffe that swings Oklahoma to Pres. Bush ;-)

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

Kerry's gaffe proves once again that he and his advisors are completely disconnected from average Americans.

[Petronski]

I personally think "Integrity integrity integrity" was almost as big a gaffe.

It was supposed to come off as a touching scene of death-bed advice, but to most people it sounded like an admonition, is if she had said "John, clean up your act."

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"Please rant on your own elsewhere."

You might want to read this thread 1st and get caught up.

Vietnam Vet told to cut down on posts.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1215274/posts

[MHGinTN]

"I said all that to say this. John Kerry's use of Vice President Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, in one of his answers might be the kind of serious gaffe with undecided voters that could spoil ..." The author didn't listen to the spin issued from the DNC and their MSM goons, obviously. But therein lies the answer: if a voter is undecided by this point in our year, with the history we've endured to date, that voter is just the sort of stinky sponge the DNC exploits with their campaign of lies and dissembling; a voter undecided at this point is too out-of-touch, or too unconcerned, or too stupid for an insult/exploitative comment by the dnc challenger to swing their vote, what with the usual lies and spin fed to them nonstop by the dnc lapdog MSM.

[The Wizard]

It was a vicious ploy and they deserve to get burned

[PhilDragoo]

The first such offense was committed by Kerry's running mate John Edwards to Dick Cheney father of the young woman.

Edwards obviously jumped into the gutter in attempt to splash some mud--getting it on himself alone.

When Kerry took the same malicious step he defined himself as shameless.

The clincher was Edward's wife Bovina's disgusting impersonation of Linda Blair in "The Exorcist".

George Bush and Dick Cheney are statesmen and gentlemen.

Kerry and Edwards are the lowest-level sewer rats--drowning gracelessly.

[tirednvirginia]

Integrity, integrity, integrity came across as a big fat whopper to me. Doubt Mrs. Kerry said any such thing on her death bed.

[pyx]

I have to agree with Scott with several exceptions.

Its NOT 15 pages.
I get 8.5 browser pages full. Posting the same information ad nauseum is wasteful and could be construed as somewhat inconsiderate to those who have lower speed connections.

I too applaude your enthusiasm and don't wish to diminish it. I only request that you consider being a bit more selective in posting this information by restraining yourself to a lesser number of postings of the same information, please.

[sinkspur]

Nobody reads your posts, Tonkin. We've seen them before.

I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but we just roll through them.

[Petronski]

Well, if that's the lie they decided to make up, then it's even worse.

[Bernard]

John Kerry had mentioned her money earlier. How much time is a candidate supposed to spend on his second wife, anyway? Now, had he met her while they were in Vietnam together, there probably would have been a very long story involved.