March 20, 2004
DONE BY MEMORIAL DAY:
90-Day Media Strategy by Bush's Aides to Define Kerry (JIM RUTENBERG, 3/20/04, NY Times)
The goal, several campaign aides said, is to first strip Mr. Kerry of the positive image that he carried away from the Democratic primary contests and then to define him issue by issue in their own terms before the summer vacation season. The central thrusts will be national security and taxes, they said.The aides said the strategy was planned weeks ago in coordination with Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political aide, while Mr. Kerry was battling for his party's nomination.
The aides are following a tight timetable, they said, and they want to have defined Mr. Kerry on their terms between now and early June, when they expect voters to stop paying close attention to politics, at least for a time. In addition, Mr. Kerry will very likely have a much larger war chest with which to fight by then, reducing the effect of the Republican media blitz.
"We just see this as the greatest window of opportunity, not that there won't be others," said Mark McKinnon, Mr. Bush's head media strategist. "It's easiest to define somebody when they're ill-defined, and John Kerry's ill-defined."
The Bush aides pronounce their efforts a success so far, and point to polls showing that Mr. Kerry's ratings are dropping while Mr. Bush's are rising, a huge relief to a campaign that just a couple of weeks ago was criticized even by some Republicans as appearing flat-footed.
"If you look at the average balance of the public polls now, the president's either even, or up one or two points," said Matthew Dowd, the president's chief campaign strategist. "And two weeks ago he was down three or four."
This early drive by the Bush campaign is in marked contrast to the approach of the Kerry organization, whose strategists say they believe the period before June is important but not as crucial as Mr. Bush's team asserts. Calling the Bush campaign's depictions of their candidate "distortions," Mr. Kerry's strategists said the labels would not stick. Mr. Kerry is on vacation in Idaho this week.
It's awfully hard to believe that many Americans are paying attention now--as witness how low Mr. Kerry's Positives + Negatives remain in most polls--nevermind that they'll be paying attention for the next three months. But, what the hey, they've got all that money--gotta spend it somehow. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 20, 2004 8:32 AM
The main goal of the Bush strategy right now -- aside from raising questions about Kerry's core beliefs -- seems to be to shape the candidate as a source of ridicule for the late night comedians, who are paid attention to by a number of Americans who otherwise won't engage in the political race for another six months. Hence the "John Kerry -- International Man of Mystery" ad the Bush people have floated on their web site.
Kerry's own gaffes on the $87 billion Iraq/Afghan aid package and his remarks as chronicled by the Nw York Times on the Sun Valley ski slopes are just assisting Rove and company in moving the image of Kerry away from "Vietnam veteran who spoke truth to power after returning home and who will reserve Bush's immoral Iraq policies" that JFK wants to "Pompus oaf who thinks he can tell people anything they want to hear and get away with it." He's just lucky the snowboard video hasn't surfaced yet, or it could be his Dukakis-in-a-tank moment.
Posted by: John at March 20, 2004 10:31 AMAs Mort Kondracke said last night, they're trying something truly devastating, using ridicule on Kerry. No presidential candidate has ever been reduced to a laughingstock by his opponents before.
Posted by: oj at March 20, 2004 10:40 AMI think its even a little bigger. The real audience right now is the media. They want "waffler" to become the default slant of any story about Kerry the same way "exagerating robot" became the default slant of any story about Gore.
Of course, they had no idea how accomodating Kerry would be. "I voted for it before I voted against it." On camera, no less. Wow. If he ever had a chance, he lost it right there.
Posted by: David Cohen at March 20, 2004 11:20 AMThere is another advantage to putting Kerry away early: Bush can then work on his coattails and campaign for Republican Senate candidates.
Posted by: Dave Peterson at March 20, 2004 11:54 AMI've never bought the idea that "people aren't paying attention" until....etc.
People pay attention to what is out there, hence Clinton's great success with tarring Dole-Gingrich as early as the summer of 1995!
Leaving aside my wish that the Administration give the electorate some credit, and use some of their money to make a strong case for their agenda items, the strategy they are using seems to be working.
Bush came off of $100 million in negative advertising (Dem primary) and slanted new coverage either even or slightly down.
The only danger is overconfidence and/or scandal (manufactured or otherwise)
We need to do our part by getting these types of blogs into our friend's email boxes.
Posted by: BB at March 21, 2004 12:54 PM