Salon: Can John Kerry climb back?

[kskiska]

On his first campaign swing since Bush opened up a post-convention lead, the Democrat was feisty. But his speeches still ramble and he hasn't decided how rough he wants to play.

By Tim Grieve

(snip)

The Kerry campaign is trying to portray a picture of calm: Spokesman David Wade reminded reporters in Ohio over the weekend that the election will be decided by a handful of battleground states and not by "national public-opinion polls." But that won't stop the questioning. In a New York Times story Sunday, a half-dozen or so prominent Democrats worried aloud that the Kerry campaign had lost its focus in August and remains stalled now. A phone conversation between Clinton and Kerry on Sunday got big play, as did Clinton's reported advice: Abandon Vietnam as an issue and focus instead on the U.S. economy. Several former Clinton aides have joined the Kerry staff, prompting the media to crow that Clinton was taking over the campaign from his hospital bed.

Sources inside and outside the campaign say the moves have been Kerry's, and that they have been more gradual than the media reports have suggested. Former Clinton aides Joe Lockhart and Joel Johnson actually joined the Kerry campaign weeks ago. John Sasso, who was serving as the general manager of the Democratic National Committee and will now travel with Kerry as a top political advisor, has had the candidate's ear for some time. The New York Times reported Monday that former Clinton stategists James Carville, Paul Begala and Stanley Greenberg will play a "larger role" in the campaign, but it was not immediately clear that their internal roles would be substantial.

(snip)

Nowhere are the problems -- and in some ways, the opportunities -- more clear than they are when it comes to Iraq. The war in Iraq remains unpopular, and the deaths of seven Marines in Fallujah Monday will only make it more so. John Edwards has taken to calling the Iraq situation a "mess," and Kerry said in a statement Monday that the president's "wrongheaded, go-it-alone Iraq policy has created a quagmire, costing us $200 billion and counting." But in this presidential race that sometimes seems like a world turned upside down, Kerry has somehow managed to allow Iraq to become a bigger liability for him than it is for Bush: In the Gallup poll, Kerry trails the president by 13 points on the question of which man the voters trust more to handle Iraq.

How could that be? "It isn't Kerry's war, it's Bush's war," an incredulous Dennis Kucinich told Salon over the weekend. "This is George Bush's war, and we've got to make sure people know that. There were a number of people in the Senate who voted for the war, a lot of people in the House who voted for the war. But it's Bush's war, it's about accountability, and we've got to put that squarely on him."

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http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/07/kerry_ohio/index.html

[Media_Lies_Daily]

1. Horse manure based on horse manure polls.

[realFedUp]

2. the roiling keeps the presses, pundits and pap perking along

not to mention the coffers of both parties....

[Democat]

3. Worth reading

Kerry's people are talking tough, let's see if they follow through.

[Snellius]

4. The longer we try to ignore this situation the worse it will get

Somehow we have to try to shout over the old guard in Kerry's inner circle. When Kerry's is generating this much doubt, among his most committed and loyal base, in the campaign this close to the wire, this is not just a matter of defeatist demoralization. This is a matter of the Indians attacking way far ahead of their chief.