The Strategery of Going Negative
The rule of going negative is: Do it right! Whether or not the Bush camp had anything to do with the Swifties must always be a matter of conjecture because Bush denounced the ads and praised Kerry’s war record. That’s called “plausible deniability.”
The Kerry campaign’s endorsement of the questioning of Bush’s National Guard service will produce at least four results.
1) Kerry looks out of touch attempting to bring up an issue that was detailed ad nauseam in 2000.
2) By bringing up the issue himself in the spring of this year, Kerry leaves himself looking petty while Bush takes the high road concerning Kerry’s service.
3) The headlines, which have been full of everything except positive Kerry stories, are now consumed with this new story, with the latest hurricane to follow. Two more weeks gone and Kerry keeps stepping on his own message.
4) If the CBS news documents are forgeries, and from what I’ve read I suspect they are, the Kerry surrogates’ eagerness to embrace them will leave a stain on Kerry - which wouldn’t be possible if he had kept his mouth shut.
All of this leads me to one of two conclusions. The most likely is the Kerry camp is in total disarray about how to proceed with the campaign. They are not where they thought they would be and are behind in states they thought would have been put away by now. The second possibility, and least likely I think, is that the top guns on his staff don’t see him winning unless they start throwing Hail Marys into the end zone. Either way, this is hardly the way a professional campaign behaves. It’s not the negativism, it’s the haphazard dispersal of it. By the way, are there any issues in this campaign?
The Kerry campaign’s endorsement of the questioning of Bush’s National Guard service will produce at least four results.
1) Kerry looks out of touch attempting to bring up an issue that was detailed ad nauseam in 2000.
2) By bringing up the issue himself in the spring of this year, Kerry leaves himself looking petty while Bush takes the high road concerning Kerry’s service.
3) The headlines, which have been full of everything except positive Kerry stories, are now consumed with this new story, with the latest hurricane to follow. Two more weeks gone and Kerry keeps stepping on his own message.
4) If the CBS news documents are forgeries, and from what I’ve read I suspect they are, the Kerry surrogates’ eagerness to embrace them will leave a stain on Kerry - which wouldn’t be possible if he had kept his mouth shut.
All of this leads me to one of two conclusions. The most likely is the Kerry camp is in total disarray about how to proceed with the campaign. They are not where they thought they would be and are behind in states they thought would have been put away by now. The second possibility, and least likely I think, is that the top guns on his staff don’t see him winning unless they start throwing Hail Marys into the end zone. Either way, this is hardly the way a professional campaign behaves. It’s not the negativism, it’s the haphazard dispersal of it. By the way, are there any issues in this campaign?
posted by EduDude at 4:36 PM
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