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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.
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EDITOR'S NOTE — Ron Fournier has covered the White House and politics for The Associated Press since 1993.
Yep. John F*ckin' started fighting back today alright - as a passable imitation of a walking dead man.
Instead of meeting the challenge head on as best he could he tried to get the ads pulled. Next, he complained that Bush didn't do enough to stop the ads so Bush came out against the ads. Now, it is impossible for Kerry to attack Bush on his military experience without being labled a hypocrite.
The Swift Boat Veterans will continue to run ads. Bush will continue to denounce all 527 groups which will only serve to bring more attention to the ads; and Kerry will try to switch the public's attention from his war record (which he put in the limelight) to items such as the economy.
It won't fly. The piblic will always gravitate to the gossip type of issues such as his tossing his medals over mundane thing like economic forecasts.
It is a basic rule of politics that a candidate with high negatives and less likability cannot help himself with an over the top negative assault on his opponent. The fact that seasoned democrat pros are recommending this to Kerry is evidence of desperation. Neither can Kerry defuse matters by a Fonda style apology to veterans-it would infuriate his base, and democrats need an intensely energized base to offset their lack of appeal to moderates.
To print out and wear as a Campaign Button, go HERE. Over 3,100 hits as of 9/1! Feel free to reuse this anywhere you wish... Really don't want to see THAT! But if he would sign the forms to release all of his service records (like Bush has), that would be much more informative - and damning, apparently, since he refuses to do it!
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