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There have been other mistakes....in Cincinnati, Kerry gave an address on Iraq without ever really talking about Iraq....The speech had lost its moorings by the second page. So had the candidate....on September 6, Kerry told his audience in Canonsburg, West Virginia, this story: "Everybody told me, 'God, if you're coming to Canonsburg, you've got to find time to go to Toy's, and he'll take care of you.' [Toy's is a local restaurant.] I understand it's my kind of place, because you don't have to--you know, when they give you the menu, I'm always struggling: 'Ah, what do you want?' He...

OHN Kerry's recent shakeup of his campaign illus trates his larger problem: He is playing a simple game of checkers, while President Bush is playing a subtle game of chess. Edging aside Bob Shrum and promoting former Clinton spokesmen Mike McCurry and Joe Lockhart to key positions in the campaign replaces a flawed strategist — Shrum — with two able, but limited, tacticians. Both McCurry and Lockhart are good at handling evolving crises and keeping the media well fed and happy. But two press secretaries do not equal one strategist. Kerry's basic problem is that he has no overview of...

Forged Documents Real Evidence the Left is on the Verge of Panic© by Publisher Thomas G. Del Beccaro If its mid-September, and the Left is not ahead, something must seriously be awry. Perhaps, the Manchurian Spouse, that's Heinz Kerry to the outsourced, was right when she recently said "only an idiot" would fail to support her husband's health care plan. What I don't understand is why she stopped there. After all, her husband has been campaigning for over a year and he's behind. Surely not supporting him would make us worse than that. The truth is, the Left has not...

It was amusing to see the Left in full meltdown mode last week. There was Chief Democrat attack dog Terry McAuliffe, denouncing the President of the United States for possible discrepancies in his records from half a lifetime ago. Then there was the Congressional Black Caucus, trotting out their partisan smear machine. They invited their favorite presidential candidate to come and bash the president, which he gladly did. But for me, it was the spectacle of Sen. Tom Harkin jumping off another political bridge that was particularly amusing. Harkin, you will recall, has a history of making a fool of...

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...

Something to Yak About – Dems Slip Into ‘Panic’ Mode; Kerry Still Listless on Iraq Position John Kerry’s continually shifting position on the Iraq war has apparently become a growing source of consternation among Democrats who have shifted into, “panic mode,” over the campaign’s inability to come up with a coherent message on the issue. “Obviously, this latest change will merely reinforce the public perception that, depending on whether you give him the benefit of the doubt, Kerry is either indecisive or an unprincipled politician who will say or do anything to get elected,” reads Peter Brown’s piece from...

September 10, 2004 -- A wave of new polls yesterday showed President Bush riding high across the nation — and even New Jersey now is a near-tie as Democrat John Kerry's big lead has collapsed. In New Jersey, Kerry led Bush by just 43 to 39 percent among registered voters in the new Star-Ledger poll — in a state Al Gore won by 16 points in 2000. GOP strategists said Bush's Garden State surge may also show anger at Democratic Gov. Jim McGreevey's resignation in a gay sex scandal. Nationally, Bush led by 9 points in the latest ABC News...

If its mid-September, and the Left is not ahead, something must seriously be awry. Perhaps, the Manchurian Spouse, that's Heinz Kerry to the outsourced, was right when she recently said "only an idiot" would fail to support her husband's health care plan." What I don't understand is why she stopped there. After all, her husband has been campaigning for over a year and he's behind. Surely not supporting him would make us worse than that. The truth is, the Left has not stopped at labeling non-believers idiots and they are in a near panic. Looking for solid evidence of that?...

Kerry looked strong early in the presidential race, but a surge by Bush has exposed that the Democrats are showing signs of cracking Presidential campaigns are three-act plays. John Kerry won the curtain-raising, four-month period after clinching the Democratic nomination and before the political conventions. President Bush had one of the best Augusts in political history by overtaking Kerry in the polls and won the second phase hands down. Bush enters the final seven weeks ahead, not just in national polls but in the count that matters -- the Electoral College.

John Kerry is running a new TV ad in the battleground states that apparently suggests he would not have gone to war in Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein's terrorist regime. But the campaign ad, which focuses on the war's $200 billion cost, only adds to the growing confusion over Kerry's ever-contradictory position on Iraq and what he would now do differently there. The commercial attempts to contrast the costs of the war to what Kerry says are unmet needs at home on the economy, jobs, healthcare and the deficit. The 30-second spot begins by saying, "George Bush: $200 billion for...

Democratic National Committee 'Action Alert' E-mail By Democratic National Committee CNSNews.com Information Services September 10, 2004 (Editor's Note: The following is the text of an "action alert" e-mail sent Friday morning from the Democratic National Committee.) Dear [Supporter], Back in February, President Bush sat down in the Oval Office for an interview with Tim Russert and spoke about his service in the National Guard. Bush told us, "I put in my time, proudly so." He said, "And I'm telling you, I did my duty." But now we know that Bush dishonored the Oval Office by lying to the American people....

There’s no one more panicky than a New York Democrat. Endowed with their party’s inferiority complex and a native neurosis, and overwhelmed by a show of Republican force in their backyard last week, members of the city’s Democratic establishment were among the first to hit the panic button on Senator John Kerry’s Presidential campaign. Now they’re among the hardest to reassure in the face of a surging President George W. Bush. "When campaigns face difficult times, Republicans stay focused, and New York Democrats go into group therapy," lamented Robert Zimmerman, a Democratic National Committeeman and major donor to the Democrats’...

Panicked presidential candidate John Kerry had every reason to believe that the conversation he had with ex-president Bill Clinton on Saturday - where the two discussed how to rescue his flagging campaign - would be kept confidential. But that expectation went up in smoke on Monday, when Kerry and his campaign aides found explicit details from the Clinton strategy session splashed all over the New York Times and other media. mong the most damaging details to surface: Clinton's strong recommendation that Kerry abandon the crown jewel of presidential his campaign - his service in Vietnam. Kerry himself was plainly mortified...

Traditionally, political campaigns are said to move into high gear with the passage of Labor Day, a concept that may horrify most Americans already sick to death of a campaign that is too much with us in its vitriol and triviality. But in the case of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, that old bromide had better apply. With the passage of Labor Day, will the Massachusetts senator give American voters reason to shrug off their well-earned cynicism and listen to what he has to say and consider what he has to offer? The Kerry campaign has been in the same...

It appears that John Kerry has realized his campaign is quickly taking on water. Even members of his own party sent out the claxon call reported in a September 5, 2004 New York Times article that the "Minnow would be lost". What is truly amazing is that these Democratic heavyweights went on the record to voice their concerns. The scramble for life vests has started. While the source of the leak is subject to speculation (from the torpedoes launched by the Swift Boat Vets, to the lack of substance of the Candidate himself, to President Bush's strong speech at the...

The downside of last week's convention was that the Republicans performed brilliantly. The upside is that it may finally have lit a fire under John Kerry. He has waged the most lackluster campaign so far, but the spectacle at Madison Square Garden, where he was attacked, often unfairly, and mocked relentlessly by the Bushies, seemed to revitalize him. Immediately after the convention wound down, Kerry starting acting like someone who wants to win this election. ....... Talk to Democrats almost anywhere, and you hear their desperation over this campaign. They want mightily to remove George Bush, but are experiencing a...

Kerry campaign implosion + collapse becoming truly sad & pathetic The latest efforts by John Kerry supporters going back to the Bush AWOL stuff is amongst a legacy of stuff cooked up or repackaged the Democrats over the years Bush has been a public figure and not something which is going to make any difference in this election. It was re-introduced to help prop up the "Bush Lied" propaganda as well as to help either Howard Dean (who went skiing on his deferments), John Edwards (who didn't serve anywhere ever at all) or John Kerry (then believing his war record...

JUDGING BY THE hysteria spilling from the New York Times during the run-up to the Republican convention in the city, you'd think that George W. Bush was thrashing Sen. John Kerry by 10 points in every single snapshot poll, whether national, "battleground," military, pro-abortion voters or German. This is not rational, but then the Times (in almost every section of the paper), is rapidly losing its grip on reality. In fact, the winner of November's election is a mystery today and will likely remain so until after the debates between Bush and Kerry, or if some unanticipated catastrophe should occur....

JOHN FORBES DUKAKIS It's hard to criticize John Kerry these days. Apparently, every criticism of him is unfair. At least, we're not supposed to criticize his time in Vietnam -- or even what he's said about Vietnam more recently -- because that would be a "smear" (even when the Kerry campaign admits, as it has regarding Kerry's Christmas-in-Cambodia claims, that he hasn't been telling the truth). . As he drew nearer, however, the woman suddenly ripped off her Cahill mask, behind which was ... Susan Estrich, Michael Dukakis' campaign manager! At that point, he woke up screaming. Ouch. The difference,...

.......... On Monday night, the Republicans were having their party, so I had mine. I gathered friends -- New Yorkers, San Franciscans and one stray Angelino -- for cocktails, snacks and a chance to observe the political system from the relative safety of a Manhattan living room. We put boring speeches on mute, but jacked up the sound when John McCain and Rudy Giuliani took the stage. A typical conversation went like this: Guest A: Ohmygod. Bush screwed McCain so hard in the 2000 primary, why is he kissing Bush's butt? Guest B: Pass the vodka. Guest A: I mean...