This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

An Incautious Attempt at Political Analysis

In an earlier post, I was sincerely and most conscientiously attempting to avoid the overtly political, and the consequences of/responses to that post showed most clearly my failure to do so. In this post, therefore, I am most sincerely and most conscientiously attempting to speak directly of the political and give most concretely my individual opinion.

Here it is: What are the Kerry campaign, the Democrats, and their allies thinking?

Kerry and Co. got schlocked by the anti-Kerry Swift Boat 527 in July and August, despite Kerry's almost obsessive focus on his military war record, which was most vividly on display at the DNC in June. [Bush had been getting his own schellacking from all the anti-Bush/Democratic 527s like MoveOn.org, the Media Fund (Harold Ickes' group), America Coming Together (the Rosenthal-led Soros-Lewis group).] Almost every pundit and Democratic strategist and their dog told Kerry to get the frick-frack away from Vietnam. Get back to the issues of the economy, health care, and Social Security. Indeed, there was that much-touted leak of the 90-minute Clinton-Kerry phone call giving essentially the same advice.

So what happens? This week we return to Vietnam and revisit (for the latest of several go-'rounds) Bush's National Guard service. This seems very much like a losing strategy. It didn't keep Bush out of the governor's office (or boot him out of it), nor did it keep him from the Oval Office. But maybe third-time's-the-charm? I don't know.

But aside from the questionable strategy, now the thing has absolutely blown up in their faces: there is significant doubt about the documents alleging some sort of malfeasance in the Bush camp vis-a-vis his National Guard duty. There's recanted sworn testimony and allegedly forged documents. Everyone and their dog is backing away from these documents. Not only is Bush's service now no longer in the spotlight, the story itself is a story. This may well be one of the most devastating blows to attacks on Bush's military service: the credibility factor for every subsequent attack will now be front-and-center. Instead of the attack getting the focus, the bona fides of the attack will garner the scrutiny.

But if this isn't bad enough, next week the infamous Kitty Kelly, mudraking biographer, will reportedly be spending three days--three days!--on the Today show alone. If I were John Kerry and the Democrats, why in the name of all that's rational would I remotely think of aligning myself with the attacks of a disreputable author?

If I may venture a prediction here? These two weeks will have done more to undermine the credibility of anti-Bush attacks than anything the Bush folks themselves could have cooked up. In short, barring some unforeseen, previously unknown, fatally egregious and one hundred percent verifiable Bush foul-up (past or present), the anti-Bush crowd has done more to protect President Bush from criticism--to in effect, coat him with Teflon--than anything the pro-Bushies could have ever hoped to have done in their most wild imaginations.

How does Kerry "recover" from this? It's hard to say. At the end of next week, there will be only six weeks till the election. That can be an eternity, in some respects, but it is also a very, very short time. Kerry needs to finally listen to his handlers and advisers: Get off the war and get on the issues! Granted, the economy has solidified, according to the Fed Chairman, and the polling seems to suggest that the electorate is responding favorably if not overwhelmingly so to Bush's policies on Social Security and health care. But the military thing is a proven albatross around the neck. And ultimately, the issues are the only things voters really want to know.

What does Kerry stand for, in policy terms, on the economy, health care and Social Security? I know he has a platform, but no one knows what it is. And that's my point. All we know is that he served in Vietnam. We haven't heard a thing about his service in the Senate. If "Give-'em-Zell" Miller got it all wrong during the RNC, we wouldn't know it, because Kerry and Co. hasn't shown us how it was wrong.

Like Bush or no, at least one has the ability to disagree with him: we know that Bush holds to military pre-emption, we know his stance on faith-based social programs, his stance on marriage, abortion and stem cell research, what he wants to do with Social Security, what he's done with Medicare, etc. Why doesn't Kerry run on his record rather than his Vietnam service? I can understand that in the beginning he might want to emphasize his military record as a counterfoil to Bush and the war in Iraq. But it is a proven losing strategy. It's time to say clearly what he's for and how that differs from Bush.

It's one thing to run on anti-Bush sentiment. But that can only take a candidate so far. Eventually people are going to want to know not what you're against (Bush in the White House) but what you're for (_________?).

There. There's my overt politickin' for now.

Posted by Clifton at September 10, 2004 02:36 PM | TrackBack