Big strategy switch on last night of convention.

[DURHAM D]

If this has already been discussed I apologize but everyone is talking about the Kerry campaign, the polls, and Mary Beth Cahill's demeanor but have you discussed the final night strategy change the Repubs made. Karl Rove had been indicating for weeks that they were not trying to reach the undecided voters but were trying to capture the 4 million radical Christians that did not vote last time. The first three nights were obviously scripted for them.

However, I think they figured out Wednesday night after Zell's diatribe that his strategy had backfired and they then scrambled to re-write the President's speech and tried to close the convention on an entirely different note. I think Karen Hughes got pulled back into the mix (poor Karl) and she helped drop in all those middle class entitlement ideas that were clearly not fleshed out but were aimed at the undecided voters and women.

Shouldn't we be looking at their problems to the same degree we are calling out our own - I think they have the real problem. They really don't know who they are.

[Tamyrlin79]

1. I disagree with your last statement

They know who they are. They simply can't remove the facade and let everyone else in on it.

[DURHAM D]

2. Point taken - perhaps I should have said their campaign

has decided to look for votes in new places.

[unblock]

3. no, this is BASIC convention strategy

the run-up to the candidate's acceptance is SUPPOSED to be red meat for the party loyalist base. undecided voters usually do NOT watch or care about this part of the convention. this is how the party says thanks to the supporters for the donations and for getting the nomination to the candidate.

the candidate's acceptance speech is the kick-off of the post-convention campaign, which is SUPPOSED to be all about getting votes from the undecided and the apathetic. so a laundry list of spending programs without any hint of how to pay for it is the traditional core of the acceptance speech.

there's nothing either novel or nefarious here.

except that they're republicans, of course, and lying their asses off.