Pollster: Bush Ahead on Credibility, Kerry 'Betrayed' Veterans
Today on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country," host Joe Scarborough was speaking with pollster Frank Luntz.
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The former Florida congressman asked Luntz why George W. Bush was ahead in the polls right now, even though John Kerry should have gotten a bump from the Democratic convention.
Luntz answered: "The last ten days, it's over a single word, a single principle: credibility. That's what these Swift Boat ads have done. They've undermined Kerry's credibility, his veracity - and they've done it with John Kerry's own words.
"I don't think the viewers at home realize just how important it is [that] they've got Kerry on videotape, they've got Kerry on radio ... you actually hear the accent, communicating what he felt.
"We're in the middle of a war right now, and the American people in general and veterans in particular don't want to hear someone, 35 years ago, basically trashing the troops."
Scarborough said, "The polls show this has less to do with what John Kerry actually did winning his medals in Vietnam than what he did when he came home. ..."
Luntz added, "Exactly. And there's one word here that stands out - we did some focus groups in the last few days - and the word is betrayal.
"That's how people feel. The language that he used, the fact that he said what he said back at that time, the veterans feel like they were betrayed."
The pollster concluded, "If the Bush campaign were to pick up" on the theme of betrayal, it would hurt Kerry even more. |
