August 13, 2004

BRILLIANT AS CUBIC ZIRCONIA:

This Is Reform? McCain-Feingold Accentuates the Negative (Charles Krauthamer, Washington Post, 8/13/2004)

Kerry's ... emphasis on his Vietnam days is a brilliant distraction from his mediocre Senate career and his unbroken string of misjudgments about the national security requirements of the United States ...

Kerry's "brilliant distraction" is no more brilliant than a hunter whose weapon of choice against a porcupine is a volley of balloons. It may look impressive, as the balloons slowly waft toward the beast; but when balloons meet quills, impressions are apt to change.

Given months to prepare for a national audience examples of his leadership, Kerry had nothing better to turn to than actions 35 years ago that he himself repeatedly described as shameful in such venues as Meet the Press. Now the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are revealing that this -- the pinnacle of Kerry's career -- may be largely fraudulent.

If the zenith of Kerry's accomplishment was so very low, how weak must be that mediocre Senate career? I think this question is why Kerry got no bounce from his convention speech. Millions of listeners must have said to themselves, "Is that all there is?"

Had Kerry ran on the superiority of his platform, his campaign would have been impossible to discredit -- for swing voters, a case of "he said - he said" about which policies are better. But running on Vietnam, Kerry discredits himself. His self-criticisms and his contested and renounced claims discredit his Vietnam experience; his reliance on Vietnam in the campaign discredits every other aspect of his experience and his qualifications.

Pundits like Krauthammer who say that the "Swift boat campaign will not affect swing voters" are wrong. They underestimate the intelligence of the voters. They confuse what Clinton could get away with and what Kerry can get away with. He won't get away with basing his campaign on a boat tour of the Mekong delta and a few war stories.

The damage Kerry has done to himself will become clear by October. Moving past Vietnam to real issues is the moment the balloons pop, when the weakness of Kerry's Senate career stands exposed for all to see, having been implicitly acknowledged by Kerry's "brilliant" campaign strategy.

Posted by Paul Jaminet at August 13, 2004 6:40 PM
Comments

I hope you are right, Paul. The Tradesports futures market has Bush at 50.0 to 51.0 % in the past two days. I wish it were higher.

Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at August 13, 2004 7:01 PM

Time to open an account!

Posted by: pj at August 13, 2004 7:06 PM

Tradesports also has futures for each state. If you add up the electoral votes, Bush leads 274-264. He is ahead in every state he won in 2000 except New Hampshire.

Posted by: Tom L at August 13, 2004 7:16 PM

The Democrats and the media have also tripped themselves up with their eagerness to attack Bush based on his National Guard record. They now have no excuse not to look into the allegations about Kerry, which are far more substantive and potentially far more damaging. I know, they are trying to ignore it now, but with a best-selling book, the issue is not going away. Eventually some newsroom is going to want to break the self-imposed embargo and actually do some investigative reporting, if only to get onto the story before a competitor.

In retrospect, I think this book will be seen as marking the end of the Kerry campaign.

Posted by: PapayaSF at August 13, 2004 8:33 PM

The Swift Boat Vets book is now ranked #1 on Amazon.

How much longer can the media ignore this?

Posted by: Gideon at August 13, 2004 10:24 PM

Actually, the media will ignore it until some prominent Democrats start getting asked about running with a liar on the ticket.

Asking Kerry about the issue is not the most damaging thing that could happen. Asking Tom Daschle might be.

Posted by: jim hamlen at August 13, 2004 10:41 PM

I agree that Krauthammer is wrong about the Swift Boat campaign. Integrity matters to swing voters. The undecideds are already concerned about his history of waffling, and lying about his military record can't help on the integrity front.

As to his lackluster Senate record, the Bush campaign has time to pick it apart. It's hard to do justice to 20 years of mediocrity, spiced up with unilateral military disarmament, in a good 30-second sound bite.

Posted by: Dave Sheridan at August 14, 2004 2:14 AM

One other thing. How scared does that porcupine get when the balloons pop?

Posted by: Bill at August 14, 2004 8:38 AM

Bill - Not half as scared as the left will get when Kerry's Vietnam stories pop.

Posted by: pj at August 14, 2004 8:55 AM

It's amazing that the phrase "mediocre senatorial record" does not appear in the campaign agenda . One can ask: how would this campaign differ if Kerry had been in a coma for a dozen years, or held hostage(like Terry Waite) for upteen years? It's amazing.

Is there any precedent for this pattern? Andrew Jackson? Historically, has any Senator ever "laid low" in order to not risk blemishing prior strong resume features?

With GW Bush we should ignore anything prior to 1990. With JF Kerry, ignore anything after "Vietnam" as either 1969 or 1973.

What if you went for a job interview, and it was made clear that one's prior decade of experience was being ignored - - "What about this experience, December,1968, to mid-March, 1969?" Would you want to work for a company with such a .. weird .. perspective?

Posted by: LarryH at August 14, 2004 11:59 AM
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