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

To: Doug R who wrote (628574)	9/20/2004 10:56:18 AM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Why John Kerry is Losing by CK Rairden September 20, 2004 Polls, polls, polls. They have emerged in multiples and vary from a John Kerry 1-point lead to a 14-point lead for President George W. Bush. The real national margin is obviously somewhere in the middle, likely settling in with a 5-7 point lead for the president. While that sounds close; in a presidential race that’s a landslide. When President George W. Bush went on Larry King on August 15th and said, “[Just] give us a chance to kick down the stretch. It really is early,” I was very skeptical. At that time I believed that the president’s campaign had probably waited too long to try to “finish strong,” as the president hoped. But I was wrong, in just over a month, the presidential campaign has been taken over by the Bush team and they are now setting the agenda and dominating Kerry’s ever-changing team of advisers. The Kerry slide began on August 9th when Kerry made a huge blunder while answering a question on the Iraq war in Arizona, “Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it is the right authority for a president to have but I would have used that authority effectively." Yikes, yet another position on Iraq showed Kerry just as the president wished, indecisive and wishy-washy. The president quickly capitalized on Kerry’s blunder and cemented in the minds of many voters that Kerry was indeed a flip-flopper and could not be trusted on such important issues. While this was going on, an anti-Kerry group called the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” were hammering John Kerry on what his campaign believed was his strength, his Vietnam War service. The group pressured Kerry on all fronts, from his medals to his embellishments. That caused Kerry to begin self-inflicted media blackout from August 9th to the current day. He no longer does “live” interviews with political reporters and hasn’t had a press conference since that day. He failed to realize the impact of the group and has still yet to address the charges. The worst mistake for Kerry was taking a month off from reporters with less than 90 days left in the campaign. A presidential campaign must be a ‘big-picture’ process with snappy slogans for the sit-com mentality folks and a grand theme for those who are more plugged-in. John Kerry has yet to capture either theme. For the last two weeks, he has adopted a slogan-a-day mantra for the sit-com folks. “W-stands-for-wrong” was a loser. Harping on Bush’s National Guard service was settled in 2000 and no one outside of the Michael Moore wing really cares, but Kerry pushed it at the voters anyway. And please—the accusations of ‘Republicans are going to steal social security’ is so played. All of these together didn’t get John Kerry one vote. He’s yet to get any grand theme to stick. The romance of John Kerry’s Vietnam service was a horrible mistake from the beginning. Running a retro campaign dating back to the late 1960’s is difficult for younger voters to follow and only reminds many older folks of a war they would just soon forget. While most give will give John Kerry nice marks for his bravery in the war in Vietnam, few will base their vote on it in 2004. It won him the Iowa Caucus and it would have been wise to leave it after that. His ridiculous first line at the Democratic National Convention “I’m John Kerry and I’m reporting for duty,” not only opened up scrutiny for his Vietnam service, but his anti-war activities after. The kicker may be that John Kerry just doesn’t seem tough or decisive enough to lead a country at war. He still comes across as a ‘metrosexual’ (which is a kind of priss) who can’t stand up for America and keep it safe. John Kerry is actually losing support from women in the latest polls and while the ‘security mom’ moniker has never really taken hold, women are indeed looking for a strong decisive leader in these difficult times of terror alert levels and ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.. He’s had his chances to appear as a strong leader, he just hasn’t delivered. And with all the minutia and nuance Kerry gives off, that may be the main reason for his quick drop in the polls. This guy just hasn’t been able to connect with the voters. Kerry is aloof an absolute bore at times, and that does not give off the air of confidence voters want in a leader. And with only six weeks to go, Kerry had better loosen up and begin to connect or he will be labeled as Michael Dukakis part II.