Kerry aide pans nasty Bush run

NYU News ^ | 11/30/04 | Jesse Greenspan

[dukeman]

George W. Bush ran the most negative presidential campaign in history, and the media never covered the story, an aide to Sen. John Kerry's campaign said last Monday at the journalism department.

Marco Trbovich, a United Steelworkers of America employee who advised Kerry on labor policy, told the 20 students gathered at Carter Hall that about 80 percent of Bush's campaign money was spent on negative advertising.

"If you can think of a few positive commercials that you saw, you saw all of them that were there," he said.

Bush's campaign played upon fear, using patriotic and religious fervor to make voters fear Kerry and the changes he might bring, Trbovich said.

"The Bush strategy worked, creating a big question mark over John Kerry's ability to lead," he said.

Trbovich, who spoke as part of the journalism department's "brown bag" lecture series, singled out two campaign phenomena that he said the media covered particularly poorly: a Bush ad about Kerry's health care plan that Trbovich called completely false, and the months-long smear campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which claimed, among other things, that Kerry faked injuries in Vietnam.

"The Kerry campaign didn't act fast enough because it wasn't cynical enough about the media [to think] that controversy was more important than context," said Trbovich, who has reported for United Press International, the Detroit Free Press and The Boston Phoenix, among other news organizations.

"I think [Bush strategist Karl] Rove is appropriately cynical about the quality -- or lack of it -- in the American media these days," he said.

Trbovich also credited Rove for successfully enlarging the base of the Republican Party, something he said his own party failed to do. He was particularly disappointed in the Democrats' failure to reach blue-collar workers.

"We had a very yuppified campaign," he said, citing as an example Kerry's five speechwriters, all of whom were Harvard University graduates and were under 30. "I could never convince those people that the privatization of Social Security was a big issue."

He also said labor had been marginalized, adding, "There's a kind of elitism to the Democratic Party."

Trbovich has known Kerry for more than 30 years, he said, and even worked as communications director of Kerry's failed 1972 congressional campaign. He said the Massachusetts senator has more integrity and intelligence than almost anyone else he knows. He added, however, that unlike Bill Clinton, Kerry's intellect is at stronger than his political ear.

"Excuse my language, but you've literally got to beat the shit out of John Kerry sometimes to get him where you want him to go," he said. •

[Tall_Texan]

Where do I start?

So much about what this guy is saying is wrong and even he himself contracdicts it.

The media didn't cover Bush's "nasty" campaign because they knew much of it was true and didn't want the charges to stick to Kerry.

Secondly, the reason Bush was able to portray Kerry as a weak and dangerous leader is because...he is. For most Americans, it was rather obvious too.

Frankly, I thought the Republicans rarely even took off the gloves. They hardly made his treasonous post-Vietnam behavior an issue, they hardly touched his Senate record, they rarely trumpeted his opposition to tax cuts. They were just happy to paint him as a wishy-washy hypocrite. I guess that's all they needed to do.

[builder]

Told the twenty students gathered

HA! HA! Such a wide audience for this "goon". This was the only good part about this article.

[weegee]

...and the months-long smear campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which claimed, among other things, that Kerry faked injuries in Vietnam.

"The Kerry campaign didn't act fast enough because it wasn't cynical enough about the media [to think] that controversy was more important than context," said Trbovich, who has reported for United Press International, the Detroit Free Press and The Boston Phoenix, among other news organizations.

The Democrats may have been illegally coordinating campaign strategy with the 527s (there is evidence they did with Soros, MoveOn, and others) but President Bush DID NOT work together with the Swift Vets and to claim that this was a part of the "Bush campaign" is an outright lie.

That said, Kerry's response was to surround himself with veterans and attack George W. Bush's National Guard experience. "He didn't fight", "He wasn't injured", "He got there by crooked means", "He was poorly rated", "He skipped out". The DNC even helped to coordinate a hoaxed up smear campaign with some phoney memos that CBS ran with for a week.

Kerry said it was wrong to attack veterans yet he repeatedly attacked the Swift Vets. He said that George W. Bush "didn't really serve" yet Kerry went stumping with Bill Clinton, a known draft dodger.

These Rats make me sick.

[skaterboy]

20 people? I had more than that at dinner the other night

[G32]

I really enjoy how the left and even Kerry's own campaign people are saying he was a lousy person. And this is the guy they tried to sell us? Hah!

[Bob]

He said the Massachusetts senator has more integrity and intelligence than almost anyone else he knows.

That sure says a lot about the kind of people he knows, doesn't it?

[COBOL2Java]

Trbovich also credited Rove for successfully enlarging the base of the Republican Party, something he said his own party failed to do.

I disagree! I think the Democrats did a tremendous job in enlarging the base of the Republican Party...

[wideawake]

I'm not so sure that Mr. Trbovic is an unerring judge of intellect.

[Southack]

Let's see: Kitty Kelly plagiarized an Alabama web site in order to pass along the lie that "Bush was a cokehead" in her latest book.

Maureen Dowd at the NY Times fabricated a quote from President Bush in order to smear him as having somehow said that we were going to war only over WMD's in Iraq.

AP Reporter Tom Hayes fabricated from whole cloth that somehow Republicans at a Bush rally "booed" when President Bush asked for prayers for Clinton's heart surgery.

CBS News let Dan Rather publish forged military documents in yet another attempt to smear President Bush, too.

Terry McAuliffe claimed that President Bush was going to stop payment on all Social Security checks, and the LA Times managed to even claim that President Bush was bringing back the draft (even though the bill to revive the draft was submitted by Democrats Wrangel and Schumer).

The NY Times devoted over a month of Front Page "news" to a year-old Abu Ghraib scandal perpetrated by a rogue unit of gay and bi-sexual prison guards, with the blame somehow being all Bush's fault. Then the NY Times managed to dig up an 18 month old "missing explosives" story and somehow claim that it was Bush's fault that 370 tons of high explosives weren't guarded, even though Iraqi government documents showed only 3 tons of explosives were there in the first place when Americans arrived.

Democrats at the CIA published a book *during* the Presidential campaign that blamed Bush for not catching Osama, leaked classified intel to damage the President, and botched their own investigation into Iraqi uranium purchases in Africa (e.g. Joe Wilson sat in a hotel and drank hot tea).

But *Republicans* had the nasty campaign?! That's purely laughable.

[weegee]

I don't know, I do see that he is shaking hands with black masked radicals. Perhaps they don't want the FBI taking their picture.

[wideawake]

Is this Mr. Trbovic himself?

[OwnershipSociety]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 28, 2002
Contact: Gary Hubbard (202) 256-8125, or
Marco Trbovich (412) 418-7513

Thousands from America's Steel Communities
Rally at the White House, Imploring the President
to Impose 40% Tariffs on Imported Steel

[ladiesview61]

What a crock a' shit!

[wideawake]

BTW, where was this photo taken? The guy in the background with the bushy hair and the green shirt looks scarily like a certain leftist I know.

[weegee]

Here is the REAL negative campaign story that was overlooked by the mainstream media. This should have been HEADLINE news as it was the first shots of Civil War II.

When angry Democrats attack - DemocRat Violence and Vandalism documents (Brownshirts for Kerry)

Even today, the DUmmies are calling for violent revolution over the election.

[Southack]

"the Republicans rarely even took off the gloves. They hardly made his treasonous post-Vietnam behavior an issue, they hardly touched his Senate record, they rarely trumpeted his opposition to tax cuts. They were just happy to paint him as a wishy-washy hypocrite. I guess that's all they needed to do."

Indeed. Senator Kerry was never close enough in the polls for us to have to air his treasonous meetings in Paris with North Vietnamese Communist leaders. Instead, we were able to go with a more positive, healing campaign simply because we were always ahead (as well as better people).

[wideawake]

Unbelievably, the guy in the blue on black T-shirt and shorts in the background right of the picture also looks uncannily like one of the bushy-haired dude's friends.

[Puppage]

George W. Bush ran the most negative presidential campaign in history

Yeah, right. And, the rat ad showing the fireman hosing down a black man & saying the republicans will do it again was WHAT?

[weegee]

Halperin/ABC News Memo Dated Friday October 8, 2004


It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite grave
I do not want to set off (sp?) and endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion.

The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.

Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.

It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.

[Mr. K]

"..."We had a very yuppified campaign," he said, citing as an example Kerry's five speechwriters, all of whom were Harvard University graduates and were under 30. "I could never convince those people that the privatization of Social Security was a big issue." ..."

And these idiots wanted to lead the free world? He let children run his campaign????