Blog4kerry - He's the Real Deal

What do you think if Kerry had never mentioned Vietnam the Republicans would not have challenged his patriotism? Of course they would have.

Republicans can't run on the issues? Healthcare, stewardship of the economy, jobs, social issues, etc. the American people stand in large majorities with the Democrats. The Republicans had to resort to their fear tactics at some point.

Kerry's folks have used the convention, the veterans, firefighters, his war record, and everything else to take this issue away from the Republicans. He wasn't harping on his war record, but putting himself into position to defend against the attacks we knew were coming.

Right now if Howard Dean was the nominee, the Republicans would have even attacked the nominee worse on this issue. Unfair and wrong of course, but really now this is the party of Willie Horton. With Kerry's record, they at least have to tread lighter.

My prediction: This backfires big time on the President and takes patriotism off the table for the election. This doesn't leave Bush much to run on...

There is a great article in the LA Times on the difference between the campaign strategies. Going back to the primary, this revives the strategies between the Dean and Kerry camps approach to the general election, do you hinge the election “on getting out your base” or “assume the base in fired up and reach out to independents and swing voters.”

Obviously, I favor the latter since getting your base out if a great strategy if your are running to win the popular vote, but is ineffective in winning the Electoral College.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-strategy22aug22,1,3635747.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Ah, to all my friends who say Kerry would overplay his Vietnam veteran hand, just keep watching.

1. Once we show the Bush campaign’s rhetoric on patriotism will stop at nothing, their house of cards will fall.
2. The “Swift boat veterans” have given Kerry a chance to keep in the news during the lull time. What should have been a dead time where Kerry should have lost ground, will actually result in a misfire.
3. This keeps Junior’s National Guard record in the forefront and continues to give Kerry a chance to highlight the difference in their Vietnam experiences.
4. The negative advertising of the Bush campaign is losing potency. $85m later, this “scandal” will cement in swing voters minds that Bush’s surrogates are “liars.” What do they have left to throw out?

Thank you Swift Boat veterans, we appreciate your incompetence and your willingness to use it. LOL

(via Politicalwire.com)

New Zogby battleground poll numbers are out.

John Kerry got his convention bounce. But it is a modest one and it comes with caveats.

The latest Zogby Interactive poll, taken during the Democratic convention, shows John Kerry ahead in 13 of the 16 battleground states we track. That is his biggest lead -- in terms of the number of states -- since Zogby began conducting twice-a-month online polls for WSJ.com in late May. Moreover, his lead is greater than the margin of error in five of the states (including Pennsylvania), up from four states just before the convention. And Mr. Kerry took back narrow leads in Florida and West Virginia.

Not bad as the challenger to be over 50% popular vote and leading in some many important states after the President has spent over 87 million in negative advertising.

Ahhh, look what the media finally discovered. When old George H. Bush’s advisors in 2002 were telling young Jr. what a stupid mistake it would be to occupy Iraq, they keep citing all the religious and ethnic groups as the reason it would quickly deteriorate in civil war.

Well guess what. Halleluiah, after the latest bombing, the media has noticed there are Christians in Iraq. Their previous code of silence was right in line with the public conception of Iraq’s embrace of Islamic fundamentalism feed by the likes of Cheney who errantly continued to draw linkage between Al Qaeda and the old Iraqi regime.

Yes, there are Christians in Iraq. And yes, Saddam's secular government protected them with many being placed high in the Baath party. And yes, Saddam’s secular government was considered a foe of bin Laden’s thugs.

The interesting thing is how when mosques where bombed the outcry was less than now when Christian churches are being bombed.

What a bitter old ex-segregationist! Please Karl, keep him front and center. If you saw his Meet the Press interview today, I'm amazed he is going to be speaking at the Republican convention. The Republicans have been attempting to mislead the American people at their convention by only allowing the ten "compassionate" conservatives in the party to speak. But oh joys, Zell Miller is going to be speaking!

My hunch was the Republicans had some master plan they were going to roll out after the Democratic convention to set us back on our heals. I fully expected Kerry to be down by 5 points in the last month, before pulling a win out. But now I'm actually wondering if they actually don't have a campaign strategy. The Pakistani’s found a HVT on the day Kerry spoke, Powell visited Iraq, another vague terror warning was announced and a crotchety old Southern Senator appeared on Meet the Press. Is that all you got?

There was a great exchange between Miller and Russert today. Miller was ranting about how the commies would have won if Kerry had his way. Russert responded by pointing out Miller’s record was exactly the same as Kerry’s record. The stammering Miller was too funny to watch!

SEN. MILLER: Oh, yes, I have a lot of doubts. If you will look at his record in the Senate, which is something they didn't talk about at all during the Democratic convention, it was as if he has been in a witness protection program somewhere and didn't even exist, incognito somewhere. He has voted--he's been on the wrong side of foreign policy issues for the last 20 years. If he had had his policies adopted in the Senate instead of the Ronald Reagan policies being adopted, we would still be in the Cold War. We'd still have a Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall would still be
up. This...

MR. RUSSERT: Now, Senator, how can you say that?

SEN. MILLER: Because this is a man...

MR. RUSSERT: I...

SEN. MILLER: This is a man who voted to cut every single one of the weapons systems that won the Cold War.

MR. RUSSERT: But aren't you...

SEN. MILLER: This is a man that voted against the weapons system that we're using to fight the war on terror. This is a man who voted against increases in intelligence funding. He wanted to cut intelligence funding.

MR. RUSSERT: But on defense and intelligence authorization bills, you have the same voting record as John Kerry.SEN. MILLER: I didn't try to cut--now ultimately he came along and voted for some, but I sure didn't try to cut this defense budget.