Hope the Swifties are prepared for barbarians...John Kerry Leaning More Heavily on John Sasso,
Who Ran Dukakis '88 Campaign, Friends and Close Advisers Say
[KLP Note: Some of us wondered why Susan Estrich was SO 'Foaming at the mouth' regarding the swifties...NOW this would explain it! Have ANY of them read the book? There is a Breaking News AP piece about to come out just now, that says there are "some missing papers from Bush's National Guard records"... Wonder when they will have the TOTAL Papers released by John Kerry....WHEN DOES HE SIGN THE 180???????]
prnewswire.com
NEWSWEEK: Kerry Furious With Cahill Over Not Attacking Swift Boat Ads Sooner; 'He Was Very Angry,' Says One Friend
NEW YORK, Sept. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- As Senator John Kerry's campaign reeled
from tough attacks against his military record by a group of hostile Vietnam
vets, his campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill and other staffers argued that the
Swift Boat ads would blow over. But, as Newsweek reports in the September 13
issue (on newsstands Monday, September 6), Kerry had had enough. For three or
four days, as he campaigned across the country, Kerry ripped into Cahill,
furious that the mostly baseless attacks on his valor were driving his numbers
down.
(Photo: newscom.com )
"He was very angry," one old friend says. "The calculation had been made
that this wasn't going to hurt him," report Washington Correspondent Richard
Wolffe and General Editor Susannah Meadows. Kerry's solution was to reach for
an old ally. "Get Vallely," he screamed. Thomas Vallely is the leader of the
pack of vets that Kerry calls his dog-hunters, a group that has beaten back
the attacks on his Vietnam record since his first Senate race 20 years ago.
"He knows that I know the other players," Vallely says of Kerry's Mayday call.
"He knows that I also like this stuff." The return of the old warriors marked
a turning point in the Swift Boat controversy, and a rare moment when Kerry
stamped his authority on a drifting campaign, reports Newsweek. "OK, time to
break out the fatigues. We've been there, done that. Time to do it again,"
says David Thorne, Kerry's close friend, of the mood among the senator's inner
circle.
And that led to Kerry's rally in Clark County, Ohio, the same night that
President George W. Bush was delivering his speech in Madison Square Garden.
And even though Kerry's counteroffensive seems to fit a well-worn pattern,
Thorne promises there's more lashing to come. But even some of Kerry's most
trusted friends can't be sure when the gloves will really come off. "I hope
we don't get to the near-death experience again," says one senior aide. "I
think he's a lot better when he's behind, but I hope we don't get too far
behind."
Kerry's campaign manager, meanwhile, stands by the strategy. "We jointly
made the decision about when to respond, and when we did, it was a very direct
and strong response from him," Cahill says, pointing to a mid-August speech
when Kerry accused the Swifties of doing Bush's dirty work. Cahill insists
that the campaign went through a similar ebb in March, when it took a big hit
in the polls as it concentrated on fund-raising. (At the time, the campaign
was saved by the downward spiral in Iraq). She maintains that her
conversations with Kerry remain private; others say there's nothing unusual
about the candidate's venting at his aides -- in this campaign or any other.
"The truth is that he'd be lost without her," says one senior staffer. "She
saved this campaign once already."
Cahill is likely to survive the turmoil, but Kerry's friends and closest
advisers say the senator is already leaning more heavily on another old chum:
John Sasso, Newsweek reports. Last spring Kerry installed Sasso, who ran the
Dukakis campaign in 1988, as his general-election manager at the Democratic
National Committee. According to a source familiar with the campaign, Kerry
wanted Sasso to run his campaign from the outset, and asked him again to do so
when he fired his first manager, Jim Jordan, last year. Sasso and Cahill
already meet several times a week and talk daily about the campaign's field
operations. Sasso has a rare quality among Democrats, according to those who
worked with him in '88. "Nobody has sharper elbows than John Sasso," says
Michael Goldman, a former Boston political consultant. "He can hit as hard as
the Republican hit machine."
Read article at: msnbc.msn.com / |
