THAT WAS FAST:

RECONSIDERING KERRY'S CONVENTION (Ryan Lizza, 8/12/04, New Republic)

Thursday revealed a lot about the state of the campaign. John Kerry tried to shift the conversation to his economic plan, delivering a speech--"A Stronger America Begins at Home: The Path to Prosperity"--in California and opening a two-week emphasis on the economy. Meanwhile, BC04 spent today criticizing Kerry for his recent statement about America needing to have a more "sensitive" approach to terrorism.

The dueling messages--the economy versus the war--are a reminder that for all the recent talk that Iraq has turned into a liability for Bush and that Kerry has made great strides in how voters view his approach to terrorism, the old conventional wisdom that Kerry needs the campaign to be about the economy while Bush needs it to be about national security has returned.

The shift in emphasis by Kerry suggests his campaign realizes that it may have missed an opportunity by making his convention almost entirely about strength and national security.

So it took just two weeks for even the Kerry campaign to realize it whiffed the convention.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 13, 2004 10:20 PM