The Downward Spiral

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Remember when the Kerry/Edwards message was "We can do better?"

Now that Kerry's slipping behind in the polls, the message has changed to "W stands for Wrong."  The message has changed from "The President is mishandling the war on terror," to "This war is wrong, and the President misled the nation."  From rising above the Swift-Boat ads, to blaming them on Bush, to turning around and attacking Bush's service.

Prediction: the more Kerry slips, the less he's going to sound like, say, Joe Lieberman, and the more he's going to sound like Michael Moore.  Next up: Kerry blasts Bush for not breaking away with the photo-op with the school kids when he first learned about 9/11.  Then, if he's really far behind, he'll bring up the Bush family connection to the Bin Ladens.

I'm not criticizing this.  He's just doing what he needs to do.  But the further he falls behind, the more vicious, strident, and angry he's going to sound, and the more he's going to pander to the worst elements of the Left.  It will be a good way of guaging how bad things are for his campaign.

[Nym90]

Remember when the Kerry/Edwards message was "We can do better?"

Now that Kerry's slipping behind in the polls, the message has changed to "W stands for Wrong."  The message has changed from "The President is mishandling the war on terror," to "This war is wrong, and the President misled the nation."  From rising above the Swift-Boat ads, to blaming them on Bush, to turning around and attacking Bush's service.

Prediction: the more Kerry slips, the less he's going to sound like, say, Joe Lieberman, and the more he's going to sound like Michael Moore.  Next up: Kerry blasts Bush for not breaking away with the photo-op with the school kids when he first learned about 9/11.  Then, if he's really far behind, he'll bring up the Bush family connection to the Bin Ladens.

I'm not criticizing this.  He's just doing what he needs to do.  But the further he falls behind, the more vicious, strident, and angry he's going to sound, and the more he's going to pander to the worst elements of the Left.  It will be a good way of guaging how bad things are for his campaign.

I agree that we should stop talking about what happened 35 years ago...who cares! This election should be about the future and not the past. I don't care what Kerry did in Vietnam, and I don't care if Bush went to Vietnam or not...I don't blame him for not going, I wouldn't have gone either.

The fact that Kerry went shows, in my eyes, that he cares about defending his country, or else he wouldn't have gone. It provides a cover against the line of attack that Kerry doesn't care about defending our nation; it doesn't mean that his policies are right, but it at least demonstrates something about his character. What he actually did there is, to me, irrelevant.

Is there hypocricy on both sides? Of course. That's politics. Both sides will do whatever it takes to win. To try to pretend that one side or the other is better or worse is just being blind to the realities of politics and being hopelessly naive.

I agree that we should talk about the issues that will affect the future of this country; there are very serious differences and this election will have a great impact on our nation's future, and we need to be talking about the issues and not this ridiculous mudslinging.

[zachman]

One of Kerry's problems is that he does not get noticed if he is general and positive or even slightly negative. The only thing the cable news really cares for is mud slinging, and the Republicans have led that and the Kerry campaign is following behind.

[dazzleman]

One of Kerry's problems is that he does not get noticed if he is general and positive or even slightly negative. The only thing the cable news really cares for is mud slinging, and the Republicans have led that and the Kerry campaign is following behind.

Kerry has not really come up with a positive agenda.  He spent his convention talking about Vietnam and criticizing the president.  But I don't have that much of a sense of what he would do differently that would be better.

Bush has also been pretty short on a positive agenda, until his convention speech gave proposals without a lot of details, but as an incumbent president he is a known quantity.  For better or worse, we know what we're getting with him, and the question is whether it is worth the risk to switch to somebody who has been so conflicted and evasive about what he would do if he is elected.

[CARLHAYDEN]

What everyone seems to forget is the campaigns of the candidates can only do so much.

First, each major party candidate starts out with about thirty seven per cent of the electorate.

That only leaves about a quarter of the electorate up for grabs.

Second, real world events impact heavily on the remaining quarter of the electorate.

The best Bush campaign could NOT help him much if the unemployment rate were above 7.5%.

Third, the classic weapon of the Democrats of the media just doesn't carry much weight anymore.  They are laying down a barrage on Bush this week, but it won't have much effect because the liberal media has been thoroughly discredited and the public now has a plethora of information from other sources.

Fourth, a couple of the old standards in the Democrat arsenal which they typically roll out this time of year are duds.  Its had to claim Bush wants to eliminate Medicare when he pushed the addition of presciption drug benefits (cann't scare the elderly), and its hard to make the case he's anti-Jewish as the left is constantly critizing the (largely Jewish) neo-conservatives behind Bush.

The Kerry campaign is stymied and frustrated because the plays in their book just don't work this year.

Desperation and extreme rhetoric by Kerry only make the situation worse for him.

His best approach would be to go on extended vacation (but his supporters would go ape if he did that).

About all that is left for Kerry is to hope that the series of economic numbers between now and election day are bad ones (not too likely).