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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (553679)	3/19/2004 12:59:47 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Kerry's Rough Patch Friday, Mar 19, 2004; 9:04 AM What's wrong with the Kerry campaign? The answer may well be nothing, since a few days in March is a blip on the screen. But some wise guys are even criticizing his decision to vacation in Sun Valley, Idaho. (Shouldn't he consult a Dick Morris type on decamping to a place that won't feed his elitist image and has more electoral votes?) That Kerry has bobbled the ball lately is pretty clear. There was the secret list of foreign leaders supporting him, the off-mike slam at the "crooked" opposition, the I-voted-for-and-against-the-$87-billion. Not to mention the jockstrap incident (explained later). It's possible, in a couple of months, that we'll look back on this period as the beginning of a slide for Kerry after his charmed life during the primaries. The New Republic's Noam Scheiber sees potentially fatal flaws in the senator: "One of Kerry's bigger problems is the difference between the two candidates' gut-level instincts. Bush in his natural state is an anti-intellectual cowboy: heavy on bravado, light on nuance. When he lets slip what he's really thinking--like his ill-advised 'bring it on' comment from last year--and that comment gets repeated by political opponents, it probably alienates half the country, but it galvanizes the other half and ends up a wash. "Kerry at his most authentic is a committed internationalist--someone who values the stability of alliances over the freedom of unilateral action. There's nothing wrong with this position per se. Except that, when expressed in a single, unguarded comment capable of being distorted by political opponents, it probably alienates considerably more than half the voting public. "I'm obviously thinking here of Kerry's recent line about having met with 'more leaders' rooting for him to beat Bush. (More than what? Unclear.) In addition to the very real possibility that the statement isn't true--a possibility Bush and his surrogates have used to raise questions about Kerry's honesty--it gives the Bush campaign an opportunity to invoke its most potent wedge issue: the perception that Democrats can't be trusted to defend American interests in the face of foreign opposition. (One Bush commercial has already accused Kerry of wanting to 'delay defending America until the United Nations approved.') "As Dick Cheney said in response to Kerry's remark on Tuesday, 'We are the ones who get to determine the outcome of this election, not unnamed foreign leaders.' Bottom line: Assuming the two candidates are equally likely to commit gaffes, the fallout from Kerry's gaffes is going to be more damaging . . . "Kerry's third structural weakness is that having a reputation for being both a liberal and a flip-flopper is a combustible combination: Whatever you do to rebut one charge just confirms the other. Take gay marriage. In the past Kerry has tended to stake out relatively liberal terrain on the issue--for example, he voted against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. This would seem to put him to the left of the average swing voter, a position that could be exploited by the Bush campaign. "So how would Kerry insulate himself from this kind of attack? The only way that comes to mind is by moving rightward--which Kerry did earlier this year when he hinted he might support an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution banning gay marriage. In one fell swoop Kerry transformed himself from a liberal on gay marriage to ... a flip-flopper on gay marriage." The Note has a seemingly endless litany of Kerry's recent missteps: "1. The 'Crooks,' 'I actually did vote for the $87 billion,' and 'more leaders' quotes, and the handling of their aftermath. "2. Still failing to present a coherent, unified message. "3. The failure of his campaign to successfully tape the original 'leaders' quote and nip the matter in the bud. "4. Believing his own 'bring it on' rhetoric and getting drawn into an extended debate on national security, just as he is leaving for vacation. "5. Failing to take a page from the Dean campaign in the fall of 2003 by not staying ahead of the story. "6. Having Dean serve as a surrogate on a media conference call on national security (a bizarro choice even before the Spanish comment). Dean couldn't even stay on his OWN message; what made them think he could stay on Kerry's? "7. Failing to instantly repudiate Dean's remark. "8. Buying a jockstrap in front of the press corps. Just weird. "9. Not more aggressively checking his instinct to equivocate and parse (see mistake 1), even if that equivocation might have some degree of intellectual soundness. "10. Waiting too long to put out Holbrooke, Richardson, and others to push back on the 'leaders' quote. "11. Going off on vacation. It's unavoidable, and goodness knows Kerry deserves a break and that some of his verbal errors were probably owing to fatigue, but now might not be the best time, with the Iraq stuff swirling out there." The Beltway is buzzing about John McCain, who had the absolute gall not to his smear his buddy and fellow Vietnam vet. Here's the New York Times report: "From television advertisements to vice-presidential oratory, the Republican attack against Senator John Kerry this week has been sharp, unsparing and unified: The Democratic candidate is 'wrong on defense.' On Thursday, one Republican senator's response was just as sharp and unsparing, but much less unified: 'No, I do not believe that he is, quote, weak on defense.' "What kind of Republican would say that? The John McCain kind, of course. "Last week, the polite but impolitic admission by Mr. McCain that he would "entertain" an offer to be Mr. Kerry's running mate provided a good day's entertainment for the capital's chattering classes (until he ruled it out).