Don't Misunderestimate the Importance of Strategery

The campaign season slogs along, looking for anything to whet its appetite. Since substance is boring, we are getting a dump truck load of Kitty Kelley, CBS Memogate, Swift Boat Guys, and a very loud Al Gore. Each campaign knew this would come in some form, yet one of the two campaigns doesn’t seem to know just what to do. Even when the news (can I call it that, really?) seems to be on their side they cannot seem to resist involving themselves in the story and mucking it up. While none of this will make much of a difference in a national campaign, all of it in its totality of information, misinformation and the response to the two does begin to congeal as an image. One of the images each candidate wants to project is that of "presidential." But the individual candidate does not project that image in a void. He is the totality of himself, who he surrounds himself with, what he attaches himself to and, just as important, how he reacts to whatever attaches itself to him.

I’ve said before that the Kerry camp seems to be clumsy at the least and absolutely inept at the worst. Simple rules are being broken. For example, don’t ever, under any circumstances, answer hypothetical questions. Kerry blundered into one when he affirmed that knowing what we know now he would have gone into Iraq. Another truism- don’t ever be your own attack dog, let others do it for you and keep yourself and your campaign out of the fray, has been tossed aside. The DNC is going after Bush’s guard duty, or lack of it, spending precious time and money on a sure loser. To make matters worse, CBS News looks now as a debunked Kerry surrogate on that issue causing thinking people to absolutely ignore whatever the DNC attempts to do with it.

The rules are easy, it’s the discipline to follow them that is hard. Kerry and his people could use a good dose of discipline right now. If Kerry wins in November, it will not be because of this latest round of slung mud, it will be in spite of it.