Susan Estrich Article on Campaign

[dazzleman]

I came across this article written by Susan Estrich, the Dukakis campaign manager, on Sept. 1.  The tone of it is really angry.  Will Estrich's predictions about the reaction of Kerry's supporters to the Swift Boat ads become reality, and if so, will that help Kerry?  Here's the article:
___________________________________________

My Democratic friends are mad as hell, and they aren't going to take it any more.

They are worried, having watched as another August smear campaign, full of lies and half-truths, takes its toll in the polls.

They are frustrated, mostly at the Kerry campaign, for naively believing that just because all the newspapers and news organizations that investigated the charges of the Swift Boat assassins found them to be full of lies and half-truths, they wouldn't take their toll. The word on the street is that Kerry himself was ready to fire back the day the story broke, but that his campaign, believing the charges would blow over if they ignored them, counseled restraint.

But most of all, activist Democrats are angry. As one who lived through an August like this, 16 years ago - replete with rumors that were lies, which the Bush campaign claimed they had nothing to do with and later admitted they had planted - I'm angry, too. I've been to this movie. I know how it works. Lies move numbers.

Remember the one about Dukakis suffering from depression after he lost the governorship? (Dukakis not crazy, more at 11.) We lost six points over that lie, planted by George W.'s close friend and colleague in the 1988 campaign, Lee Atwater. Or how about the one about Kitty Dukakis burning a flag at an antiwar demonstration, another out-and-out lie, which the Bush campaign denied having anything to do with, except that it turned out to have come from a United States senator via the Republican National Committee? Lee Atwater later apologized to me for that, too, on his deathbed. Did I mention that Lee's wife is connected to the woman running the Swift Boat campaign?

Never again, we said then.

Not again, Democrats are saying now.

What do you do, Democrats keep asking each other.

The answer is not pretty, but everyone knows what it is.

In 1988, in the days before the so-called independent groups, the candidate called the shots. To Michael Dukakis' credit, depending on how you look at it, he absolutely refused to get into the gutter, even to answer the charges. His theory, like that of some on the Kerry staff, was that answering such charges would only elevate them, give them more attention than they deserved. He thought the American people wanted to hear about issues, not watch a mud-wrestling match. In theory, he was right. In practice, the sad truth is that smears work - that if you throw enough mud, some of it is bound to stick.

You can't just answer the charges. You can't just say it ain't so.

You have to fight fire with fire, mud with mud, dirt with dirt.

The trouble with Democrats, traditionally, is that we're not mean enough. Dukakis wasn't. I wasn't. I don't particularly like destroying people. I got into politics because of issues, not anger. But too much is at stake to play by Dukakis rules, and lose again.

That is the conclusion Democrats have reached. So watch out. Millions of dollars will be on the table. And there are plenty of choices for what to spend it on.

I'm not promising pretty.

What will it be?

Will it be the three, or is it four or five, drunken driving arrests that Bush and Cheney, the two most powerful men in the world, managed to rack up? (Bush's Texas record has been sealed. Now why would that be? Who seals a perfect driving record?)

After Vietnam, nothing is ancient history, and Cheney is still drinking. What their records suggest is not only a serious problem with alcoholism, which Bush but not Cheney has acknowledged, but also an even more serious problem of judgment. Could Dick Cheney get a license to drive a school bus with his record of drunken driving? (I can see the ad now.) A job at a nuclear power plant? Is any alcoholic ever really cured? So why put him in the most stressful job in the world, with a war going south, a thousand Americans already dead and control of weapons capable of destroying the world at his fingertips.

It has been said that in the worst of times, Kissinger gave orders to the military not to obey Nixon if he ordered a first strike. What if Bush were to fall off the wagon? Then what? Has America really faced the fact that we have an alcoholic as our president?

Or how about Dead Texans for Truth, highlighting those who served in Vietnam instead of the privileged draft-dodging president, and ended up as names on the wall instead of members of the Air National Guard. I'm sure there are some mothers out there who are still mourning their sons, and never made that connection. It wouldn't be so hard to find them.

Or maybe it will be Texas National Guardsmen for Truth, who can explain exactly what George W. Bush was doing while John Kerry was putting his life on the line. So far, all W. can do is come up with dental records to prove that he met his obligations. Perhaps with money on the table, or investigators on their trail, we will learn just what kind of wild and crazy things the president was doing while Kerry was saving a man's life, facing enemy fire and serving his country.

Or could it be George Bush's Former Female Friends for Truth. A forthcoming book by Kitty Kelly raises questions about whether the president has practiced what he preaches on the issue of abortion. As Larry Flynt discovered, a million dollars loosens lips. Are there others to be loosened?

Are you shocked? Not fair? Who said anything about fair? Remember President Dukakis? He was very fair. Now he teaches at Northeastern University. John Kerry has been very fair in dealing with the Swift Boat charges. That's why so many of my Democrat friends have decided to stop talking to the campaign, and start putting money together independently.

The arrogant little Republican boys who have been strutting around New York this week, claiming that they have this one won, would do well to take a step back. It could be a long and ugly road to November.

[agcatter]

I dare em.  Pull that crap and they're going down in 40 states.  Unbelievable.

[AuH2O]

More like 48.

[lidaker]

Where did you find the article?

[dazzleman]

Where did you find the article?

It was a link to Susan Estrich's columns on newsmax.com

[dazzleman]

I was actually disappointed to see Susan Estrich write this kind of thing.

While I disagree with her quite a bit, she has appeared to be one of the more reasonable Democratic pundits when I have seen her on the news shows.

But her thesis that Kerry is in trouble because he's too nice is ridiculous.  The Democrats are as mean and nasty as they come, when they have the opportunity.

I have no doubt they'll dig up whatever bad things they can to throw at Bush, just as they did last time, holding back the DWI arrest information until the last days of the campaign.

Maybe they'll try something similar now.  I never heard about Cheney's alleged drinking problem before, and don't necessarily believe it now.  As for the alleged additional Bush DWI's, that card's already been played.  And everybody already knows that he's a recovering alcoholic.

It will be interesting to see what happens with all this.

[agcatter]

I too am very disappointed in Susan.  I've seen her on numerous cable talk shows and I've always enjoyed listening to her.  She's a Democrat, but always a very sober, thoughtful one with a very good sense of humor.

The fact that a person like her has gone off the deep end is not a good sign.  If she can't even keep it together imagine what is going to be coming from the Bush hating left.

It won't play well I can tell you that much.

[Democratic Hawk]

More like 48.

George W Bush is no Nixon or Reagan not be a longshot. His fiscal management is atrocious for which he should be defeated in the fashion of FDR over Hoover in 1932.

Doesn't the record national deficit concern the fiscal conservatives who elected him? He thinks spending lke a drunken sailor is the answer to America's problems. It isn't.

He's worse than those so-called "tax-and-spend" liberals that the Republican Party are so fond of berating.

Smacks of hypocrisy and double standards if you ask me.

Dave

[12th Doctor]

This article confirms my opinion of Estrich, and that is that she is just a bitter partisan hack (whenever she gets on TV I have to turn the volume down, her voice is like finger-nails on a chalk board).  The President has condemed the Swift Boat Vets charges about Kerry's Veitnam expireince and even defended Kerry.  It is the new ad that shows what Kerry did when he came back from Veitnam that the President doesn't mind, because it is all undenyably true.  Even John McCain has endoursed that ad!!!

Fact is, Susan, that the Kerry people and indeed, the entire Democrat Party were smearing Bush long before the Swift Boat ads came out.  

As a side note, I was waiting in line for tickets to see Bush yesterday (I already had mine, I was there with a friend) and a group of people pass by.  One looked right at me and said, "Yeah, I can't wait to go see the President who kills people and steals their oil".

The wonderful, understanding people on the Left went negative long before we did, so live with it.  We are sorry if the truth about Kerry's Senate record, and what he did when he came home from Veitnam offends you people, but take it out on the candidate.  Don't get Larry Flint types to run around finding smear on Bush, it will onlyturn people off to your cause.

[agcatter]

Super, I'm afraid those on the left will now go bananas.  Given how far gone they have been over the last year, I can only imagine how crazy they will now become - total meltdown.

[JNB]

  I remember 88, and as bad as the month of August was for Kerry, it still wasnt as bad as Dukakis. The Boat Cowards did take their toll, but Kerry can repair the damage and get his campaign back on focus. The focus should be about the economic insecurity that Americans feel and the lack of the consistent foreign policy of the Bush admin. But he need sto make his case in a consistent manner.

[lidaker]

I think the reason why you republicans seem to be shocked by Estrich's article is that you don't understand the extent to which John Kerry's record has been misrepresented.

Read this, for example: http://factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=252

[ATFFL]

Susan is very upset about the Kerry campaign repeating her mistakes.  I can hardly blame her, she was terrible at her job and anyone copying her methods is making a glaringly obvious mistake.

Before the RNC she was one of the better partisan dems admitting when teh Republicans handled a situation right and slamming the Dems when they were wrong.  At the RNC she turned bitter slamming anything the Republicans did at the convention giving all their speeches low ratings (except the President, which is a sign of how good he did) and joined in the masquerade line.

What she fails to make clear in her article is that she was the one who adivsed Dukakis, she was his campaign head, and she had no clue waht she was doing.  

Of course she remembers none of the negative ads run against Bush I.  She does not remember the commercials that accused Bush of changing positions to suit the party's needs.

[zorkpolitics]

So Susan is:  worried, having watched as another August smear campaign, full of lies and half-truths, takes its toll in the polls.

This is part of the Democrats Talking Points for Sept.
They will repeat and repeat and repeat the claim that the Republicans are running a smear campaign full of lies and half-truths.  But they will be slinking mud at every opportunity,  here are some quotes from the AP and WP articles the last two days:

Former senator John Glenn (D-Ohio) took the defense a step further by comparing the Republicans’ misleading statements to those of Nazi Germany.

Criticizing the Republican convention as bitter and insulting one moment, then calling Mr. Bush dishonest the next, Mr. Kerry attacked.

On the internet the Democratic Underground is hyping a new book from Kitty Kelley, an unauthorized biography, that claims Bush is gay!

So look out for the mud!

[Giant Saguaro]

One of the reasons why this will fail is that people already know Bush. He was a drunk, a womanizer, he's stupid, etc. all was tried before. And people have seen him lead and in action on the last 4 years. Now if they're going to come out and try to say he's gay and do things like that, they're in a measure of trouble that's off the scale.

Why Kerry is going only negative indicates to me that he feels he can't win on his platform (which means people have seen through it and have seen what's at the core of it), he can't win anymore on Viet Nam, he can't win on leadership qualities, he can't win on being seen as significantly better than Bush, and so he's just going to set a collision course, essentially.