Hewlitt's blogging up a storm:
I spent a few hours with John Podhoretz, David Frum, Richard Wirthlin, Brent Bozell, Michael Barone, Richard Viguerie, Bob Barr, Linda Chavez, George Marlin, Cal Thomas, Brad Miner and Senator Zell Miller at an American Compass book club-organized author roundtable. (The club's five books for one dollar --including my book!-- is an incredible offer that the club is using to launch its membership.) You learn a lot around very smart people. Some takeaways from the conversations:
*from Barone: Bush lags behind Clinton in '96 and Reagan in '84 in 18-to-30 year olds. Bush can turn this around, especially with the opportunity society proposals, but he does have to focus on it.
*from Wirthlin: John Kerry's salute will prove to be the greatest strategic error of his campaign
*from Chavez: Republicans are underestimating the sheer scope of the labor effort. The numbers were indeed stunning in terms of monet and manpower devoted to beating Bush.
*from Frum and Podhoretz: New media has won. Old media knows it. And old media are very unhappy.
*from Fund: The lawyers mobilized on both sides to litigate the election will provide not one but many Floridas if it is close. Pray that it isn't close.
*from me: The reason the new media is so powerful is that people with opinions no longer need to persuade people to be allowed to persuade people. The gatekeepers are finished.
*from Bozell: don't underestimate the power of a handful of bloggers, recalling that it was three East Gedrman students who in essence organized the 1989 revolution via a mimeo machine and a battered car.
Meta-message: Kerry's devastated and the pros know it. The Vietnam issue isn't gone at all, but still eating away at his numbers. The buzz about his inability to respond effectively is turning into a buzz about how that inability equals an admission. The Kerry defeat will join liberal mythology of victimization --first Gore, then Cleland, then Kerry, the three musketeers of whining, examples that fathers teach their children not to emulate when it comes to the aftermath of defeat.
Why is it so harmful to Kerry? Wirthlin judged "the salute" to have been too obvious and too great a stretch from the reality of Kerry's rather complicated Vietnam story to the picture he was trying to present. The salute remained on the public's mind even as the public was reminded of Kerry's '71 testimony and the truthful charges of exaggeration were surfaced and authenticated. Candidates cannot overreach in that fashion without alienating the electorate, and Kerry has.
Wirthlin's widely recognized as one of the greats when it comes to understanding the electorate (as is Barone.) The campaign is far, far from over, of course, but Bush is in a tremendous position as the prime time convention opens.
hughhewitt.com |
