Some thoughts on the 2004 Democratic Campaign

[Nym90]

   Much of the blame gfoes to events out of control of the Kerry camp. The BS memos that CBS pushed has sucked the air out of the Kerry camp in the last week and have further energized the GOP base, while the distortions of Kerrys record by the Swift Boaty COWARDS(men who have guts whould not resort to distortion of a mans record) has made the socially conservative but economically populist blue collar voters unsure about Kerry. Again, Kerry is lucky this took place in Mid Sept, not mid Oct, so he has time to recover, but again he has to have focus.

  The bright side for Kerry is that despite his mis steps, despite events outside of his control and despite COWRADLY distortions on his past record, he is only a few points behind(and yes, I feel that Gallup is a bit off its rocker).  THe election needs to be based on issues, such as the quagmire in Iraq, the rented economic recovery(though Asian centeral banks buying US bonds non stop and illresponible spending and tax cuts), and job outsourcing.
 

Excellent points, JNB.

It depends on whether you look at the glass as half empty or half full. Everyone talks about how Kerry has run such a horrible campaign, and is such a horrible candidate, but guess what, he's only 5 points behind. He can still win this thing. Despite Bush having run a much better campaign so far, the election is still pretty close. 5 points is far from a landslide and is far from a safe lead at this juncture. So looking on the bright side for the Dems, everything has gone Bush's way and against Kerry for a month or more now and yet Bush is only 5 points ahead. That shows that there is still a solid base of ABBers, and that the public is far from sold on Bush. Kerry can win this election if he can turn it around and start running a decent campaign. It's far from over, and definitely not too late by any means.

I'm still confident that Kerry will win, because of the reasons you have listed. Bush can't keep muddling the facts and dodging these questions forever.

[Nym90]

I really think it would be nice if Kerry would contrast his preferences on the issues with Bush's.

Perhaps he can promote his opposition to the proposal to ban Partial Birth Abortion.

Maybe he can trumphet his opposition to capital punishment?

He really should stop playing games and do a Mondale and admit he supports higher taxes (well, at least Mondale was honorable about this)

He should be honest about his position on Gay Marriage (his current public position differs from the one he took a couple of years ago).

He should also tell us how a Kerry department of education would promote bilingual educatikon over immersion.

He should tell the voters that he supports racial preferencesfor education, employment, etc.

Yes, it would be a very interesting campaign if Kerry would contrast his stand with those of Bush on these issues.

Bush is free to bring up any or all of these topics if he so chooses. So far, he hasn't. I don't see why Kerry has anymore responsibility to talk about these things than Bush.

And on taxes, he does not take Mondale's position. It's not playing games to support a tax increase for the top 2% and cuts for the other 98%.

Bush should just stop "playing games" and admit that he doesn't give a damn about budget deficits. Just do the little smirk and say "Hey, I'll be long gone out of office by the time it really matters anyway; let someone else deal with it."

[Nym90]

Exactly. Kerry has allowed this election to become a referendum on himself. As long as it's a referendum on Bush, Kerry will win. Most elections ultimately become a referendum on the performance of the incumbent. Kerry just needs to stop allowing Bush to muddy the facts and make him own up to his true record.

I give them credit; the Republicans are masters at turning positives for their opponents into negatives and negatives of their own into positives.

It's also worth noting that I don't think that either Kerry or his campaign are terrible either. I was just responding to the fact that Republicans keep saying that Kerry is a terrible candidate and has run a horrible campaign. If that's true, and yet Bush is only 5 points ahead, I don't see what the Republicans have to be smug about.