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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Win Smith who wrote (406)	2/4/2004 3:09:37 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 173976

Touch of Harry In the Night msnbc.msn.com [ The "Harry" reference is a little obscure, but I hope Kerry pounds W's bogus "mission accomplished" carrier landing stunt for all it's worth. Next up: who can say, I'd guess another "civility" lecture from the WH flacks about how slime emanating from W's handlers is always good but it's not nice to look at the dubious circumstances in W's past. ] In 1988 it was Dukakis who looked silly in a tank. This time, Kerry shivs George Bush for 'playing dress-up aboard an aircraft carrier' By Jonathan Alter Newsweek Feb. 9 issue - Max Cleland reads Shakespeare. In Columbia, S.C., last week, the triple amputee who lost his Senate seat in 2002 quoted "Henry V" to an audience of fellow Vietnam veterans who support John Kerry: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers." But perhaps because "happy" and "Vietnam" don't go well together, the occasion called for another great line from that play. When an African-American gunner from Kerry's Swift Boat told of Kerry's courage and personal concern for his men, Cleland spoke of leadership in battle as "a little touch of Harry in the night." A little touch of Kerry won't be enough to beat President Bush. If Kerry sews up the nomination (still not a sure thing in a season of accelerated buyers' remorse), he will face a barrage of incoming fire across a dozen swing states this spring. It has already begun, with Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie noting that congressional scorecards show him as "more liberal than Ted Kennedy." Other Republicans are signaling that they will make an issue of Kerry's opposition to the death penalty until 2002, when he decided to run for president. The point will be to depict him as soft on terrorists and drug kingpins and a political opportunist to boot. With the help of a talk-radio monopoly and $100 million or so in negative ads, Bush operatives will make sure every voter knows about the Kennedy connection and the death-penalty conversion. To win in November, Kerry must pivot repeatedly from defense to offense and take the battle to Bush. Wartime heroics are helpful in politics but rarely decisive. World War II vets George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole both lost to draft dodger Bill Clinton. I'll never forget watching Cindy McCain burst into tears the night of the 2000 South Carolina primary when aides told her husband, John, that he had not just lost to George W. Bush, but had lost among veterans. Cleland lost in Georgia in 2002 to Saxby Chambliss after Chambliss, who ducked the draft, had the nerve to attack Cleland's patriotism. When I asked Kerry why the Republicans wouldn't do to him what they had done to Cleland, he said that Cleland failed to fight back against attack ads, a mistake he wouldn't make. Cleland himself has learned his lesson and is now going preemptive on behalf of his man Kerry. While he challenged Michael Moore's claim that Bush was a "deserter" during Vietnam, Cleland did argue to me that "Bush was AWOL and was kicked out of the Alabama National Guard" when he worked on a Senate campaign instead of fulfilling the second year of his guard duties. The Bush camp denies this, noting that the young guardsman received an honorable discharge. But even if Cleland turns out to be wrong (the facts are hazy and inconclusive), the dustup symbolizes the determination of Democrats to match the GOP blow for blow. Anyone who tries to make Kerry look soft will get an earful not just about Bush but Dick Cheney, who escaped the draft because he said he "had other priorities" during Vietnam. Raising this doesn't win many votes. But it might make it at least a little harder to depict the Democrats as girly-men who won't keep us safe, the not-so-subtle subtext of the GOP campaign. At the same time, the "liberal, liberal, liberal" attack line may be getting stale. After years of success with liberal-bashing TV ads, consultant Arthur Finkelstein suffered a string of losses in Senate races in the late 1990s. Kerry's notion that voters are "tired of labels" may be wishful thinking, but they will clearly want to hear more about Kerry than that he supported a nuclear freeze 20 years ago and opposed the gulf war in 1991. The more recent death- penalty flip-flop will be harder to rebut. But even there, he'll counterpunch, arguing that he helped put more cops on the streets, while Bush is taking them off. The aim is muscular liberalism, an effort to "de-Dukakisize" the man who once served as Michael Dukakis's lieutenant governor. In 1988 it was Dukakis who looked silly in a tank. This time Kerry shivs Bush for "playing dress-up aboard an aircraft carrier" and builds his stump speech around the idea that the only ones with their "Mission Accomplished" are wealthy special interests coddled by the president. His attack on "Benedict Arnold CEOs" who get tax breaks to move jobs offshore is always a crowd pleaser. And he's already clocking Bush for trying to cut combat pay and veterans' benefits in wartime. Both the risk and the hope for Kerry is that the true character of the candidate has a way of oozing through in a presidential election. Will his aloofness resurface? Or will voters in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania see the strength and grit of the Mekong Delta? Kerry was decorated for turning his boat toward shore under heavy fire and heading straight for the enemy hiding in the bushes. He found them.