The Powder Puff Derby Has to Stop

[ItsMyParty]

This is one of the few times I have agreed with Joe Klein because usually he is an ass who says stuff I don't want to hear (Time magazine current issue). It is not good that we took a hit to the chops reflected in polls BEFORE the Republican convention no matter how much we want to convince ourselves otherwise. Joe is the "umteenth" journalist (no, they are not all lying) who talks about lousy miscalculations in the Kerry camp on the part of his campaign staff because they are relying on idiot "focus groups" and telling Kerry to not REALLY attack.

He sites Carville's observation that these groups are stupid because they are always on their best behavior and give a totally inaccurate picture of what sells in America. He points to issues that could right now be dynamite for Kerry---for example, he talks about Kerry hitting Bush like hell on how much Bush has fucked up the war in Iraq (a goon government in Fallujah; and the playing patty-cake with the Najah situation, etc.). I so agree because I see that Kerry has, indeed, attacked Bush but it's on issues of jobs, economy, healthcare, etc. That's what Dems for the last 10,000 presidential campaigns have done--it's the typical Dem script!!! We are not hitting the core which is Bush's total ineptness on the job and his lies. We are doing a gentleman's sword fight when they are back street brawling.

We are now in a "situation". It is not some passing situation but rather one that gets worse as Bush roars out of his convention. Klein is correct that this campaign staff cannot now keep doing what before was successful until a few weeks ago. It now no longer is enough. Now it has to change and go after the attributes Bush is running on. 90% of these campaign appearances now have to be about Bush being an exaggerated liar about his abilities to fight terror. We have to accept that we were knocked down a peg by a Rove machine that knows what it is doing and we cannot just slosh through the "same old, same old" for the next 8 weeks. No there will not be a Bush backlash on the swiftboat issue (nothing has ever stuck to him). No, Kerry isn't going to hit him out of the park during the debates---no one watches the debates except people like us anyway and he isn't going to wait until then to attack Bush. He has to now lay down an image in people's mind that Bush is not only a fuck up ont he domestic front but that he is a total, inept failure on this war/terror front as well.

[Warpy]

1. Kerry needs to do what he did last fall

which is realize the DLC handlers are giving him rotten advice and DUMP THEM. They are sure election losers. They have no earthly clue what the rank and file Democrats are like because they're too damn busy squabbling over a yuppie minority to care.

If he continues to take rotten DLC advice, he could blow this, and we simply can't afford it.

[BeFree]

2. A miserable failure

What did boosh do on or before 9/11? NOTHING!

How did he get his war on in Iraq? LIED!

Is Osama in custody? NO

Can we afford four more years of this miserable failure?

[ItsMyParty]

3. Yep, that's what Klein means-------enough of the jobs, economy, etc.

..that's pretty well saturuated and people know the score. NOW it has to be destroying what Bush is running on which is this terrorism crap. Of course he's done crap. The only reason we haven't had an another attack is because bin Laden hasn't decided to hit yet!!!! Rove was brilliant. He knows that Kerry always sealed the deal through vets so he hit him in his "vet balls". We haven't studied them and worked out a campaign to kick the stool that Bush stands on right out from under him until he swings by the noose. We have 8 goddamn weeks to do it and he needs to take charge of this campaign and kick the ass of these Gore left-overs and stupid Pollyannas. We have to do the same type of damage to Bush that they just did to what Kerry was running on.

[lancdem]

7. I don't think Kerry has any Gore leftovers

[Julien Sorel]

4. Unless Carville and Klein know something

about how Kerry's focus groups are run, their criticism is a little silly. People who run and interpret data from focus groups understand the limitations of the format and adjust for them -- or at least, they are supposed to. So unless Klein knows for a fact Kerry's market researchers are incompetent, he's talking out of his ass.

[lancdem]

5. That's what I was going to say

How does Klein know Kerry won't take his campaign to another level after the RNC? I never expected his campaign in Sept. and Oct. to be the same as it was in the summer. Kerry is known as a finisher. I'll be shocked if he doesn't rev it up several notches because that's what it'll take to win.

[ItsMyParty]

10. lancdem--it's one thing to rev it up on the usual

(like jobs, economy, etc.); but the reving up has to be now to not let Bush strut around on his "I save you from terror caped crusade". He's made his points on the domestic front. Now it's time to take what Bush will make his centerpiece at this convention and torch it. Just like they took Kerry's centerpiece of "I'm a great warrior of 'Nam" and tried to shove it down his throat and unfortunately a few too many people believed them.

[lancdem]

15. I agree

Kerry cannot cede Bush the terrorism issue. I don't think he will.

[ItsMyParty]

8. Oh for god's sakes, have you ever seen one in action??

They are never going to say "to hell with nice, go for the balls". They are always going to do the "I just can't stand negative attacks" and yet those are the images that stay with people. I've watched where one person can take over the forum and by the end they are all agreeing with whatever that person said instead of sticking to a position. And over in the corner is the "scoreboard" that says that Rove scored with the swiftboat ads enough to have us on the run even before their convention. We have a problem and for his people to sit with their tea and watercress sandwiches and say "John, you're doing swell; don't attack, play it nice" is not going to deliver this vote. In fact Klein talked about stupid things Kerry ended up being backed into a corner on because they won't let him take off the gloves. (i.e., his attack in front of the vets about danger of moving troops from Korea, etc. when he said exactly what Bush a few weeks earlier in an interview). If he attacked on the heavy issues like how Bush totally screwed up this war above and beyond having allies, Bush and the media would be on such a running around mission that they wouldn't have time to bait Kerry, set him up, and then screw him.

[bushwakker]

11. In addition the idea that "health care" is an issue

that will fire up the voters and damage AWOL is ludicrous. Every poll always says that "health care" is the # 1 issue but that is all BS. National Security and who the people trust to protect America is the only issue in this campaign.

[lancdem]

12. But how do we know he's not going to be more aggressive

after the RNC? He'll finally be able to start spending some money on ads, and he'll have the same resources at his disposal that Bush has for a change.

[Julien Sorel]

16. So you understand this about them,

but people who run dozens of them a year do not. I see.

[John_H]

14. They're probably assuming focus groups are being run like

focus groups are always run, especially if Kerry happens to be working with a combination of the same five or six firms that do nearly all dem focus groups and whom Carville has probably worked with dozens of times each. Unless anyone knows that Kerry's focus groups have made a sudden departure from the status quo,they're probably talking out of their asses.

[seventhson]

6. Bushes and Hitlers

that is the meme

The Bushes supported Adolph Hitler

Osama

Saddam

Pinochet

Noriega

Peron

Baptista

and a host of evil others


we need to say that over and over again.

MANY people STILL are unaware of the Bush connections to the Third Reich, the death camps, and the Nazi party from its early days.

Many do not know that Prescott Bush's company was prosecuted as an enemy agent in WWII for arming Hitler.

We need to make THIS our meme

It is a clash of historical proportions

The Bushes BACKED Hitler Against the United States resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American GI's on the battlefields of Europe.

Not to mention the deaths of millions in the industrial/petrochemical death camps.

It is no different today.

[bushwakker]

9. Go after AWOL's alleged "strength"

He needs to be softened up in regards to his "leadership" in the "war on terror." AWOL has made us LESS safe not more safe thn we were before.

[ItsMyParty]

13. bushwakker--yes, and they have to get very specific

It's hard to just yell "we are not safer". Now it's time to point to individual messed up situations in Iraq and to outline all of the nonfunding, etc. Bush has dragged for all these years in really securing this nation. Kerry has to destroy this totally bogus image that too many fools still have in this nation. I guy with a bullhorn on a burning heap of bodies does not make a leader nor a protector.