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Saturday, October 02, 2004
Game ON
Newsweek, which you will recall had Bush previously up by 11 and recently up by 5, now has Kerry up by 47-45.
Mr. Edwards, it's your turn. Please don't pull a Lieberman.
Friday, October 01, 2004
Now That It's Become Pretty Settled
That the foreign policy debate was a disaster for Bush and a boon for Kerry, anybody wanna bet how long it will be before we see the next "Terror Alert" ? You may recall we haven't seen one since the Republican Convention.
Kerry The Closer?
I'm going to preface my remarks by stating that I thought Gore destroyed Bush in their first debate in 2000, and then the media went nuts over sighs and that probably cost Gore the election. That being said, the only person sighing last night was Bush.
Going into the debate last night, Bush had made Kerry a caricature -- Kerry's this, he's not strong, he's a flip-flopper, he doesn't mean what he says -- and that is the only way that Bush was able to pull ahead in the polls. Look at the state by state polls -- in a lot of states Bush is doing better in the polls than his approval rating in those states. That says to me that Bush has done a good job of making Kerry an unacceptable alternative to him.
But the thing about debates is that you get to stand next to the other the guy and actually show whether or not you are what the other guy's been saying about you. And I think Kerry did a very good job last night of showing America that he is not the man Bush has depicted and I think a lot of voters will now think about moving his way. Kerry looked presidential and he looked calmer and cooler than Bush.
I also think the debate agreement is something that Bush may regret. History shows that the most people watch the first debate and that is usually decisive. So Bush wanted the first debate to be about foreign policy, because he thought he could destroy Kerry by using his same attacks he's been using for months. (Think about it, how much of Bush's campaign is about attacking Kerry on domestic issues?) But last night it was Kerry, not Bush, who looked stronger and now the debates go to more Kerry-friendly areas where the President will not have an easy retort. It's also amazing -- can anyone tell what Bush had to say last night other than "he changes his mind" and "he flip flops" ? He's got nothing else.
I also think the lights on the stage hurt Bush. He wanted them because he wanted to show people that Kerry is long-winded and people would see as Kerry went over his time. But more often than not last night, it was Bush who was still talking after the red light went on, and even starting flashing, and you weren't even sure what is was that he was saying that required him to go over. By contrast, having the lights up there made Kerry talk more like Bush -- clearer, more concise, more declarative. That was a great unintended consequence for Kerry. In one exchange, Kerry got 30 seconds to respond to Bush's charge that he had changed his position on the war in Iraq. Kerry then proceeded to state his position clearly in 30 seconds when he hadn't been able to do so for six months with unlimited time.
The press loves to follow a script (See 'Gore as Exaggerator') and plug the campaign events into that script. How about "Kerry is a great closer"?
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
How to Debate George W. Bush by Al Gore
Gore has a very good op-ed in the New York Times today on how to debate George W. Bush with some advice for Kerry. Gore makes a couple good, but personal, points, such as how we shouldn't be selecting the guy we most want to have a beer with. (Gore quotes the great Jon Stewart as saying in 2000 that "I want my president to be the designated driver.'' Nice dig on the DWI, BTW.)
But Gore's last line is the best:
The biggest single difference between the debates this year and four years
ago is that President Bush cannot simply make promises. He has a record. And I
hope that voters will recall the last time Mr. Bush stood on stage for a
presidential debate. If elected, he said, he would support allowing Americans to
buy prescription drugs from Canada. He promised that his tax cuts would create
millions of new jobs. He vowed to end partisan bickering in Washington. Above
all, he pledged that if he put American troops into combat: "The force must be
strong enough so that the mission can be accomplished. And the exit strategy
needs to be well defined."
Comparing these grandiose promises to his failed record, it's enough to
make anyone want to, well, sigh.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
More Documents Revealing Gaps in Bush's Service
The Onion uncovers new documents that reveal gaps in Bush's service as President:
WASHINGTON, DC—Freshly unearthed public documents, ranging from newspapers to cabinet-meeting minutes, seem to indicate large gaps in George W. Bush's service as president, a spokesman for the watchdog group Citizens for an
Informed Society announced Monday.
"We originally invoked the Freedom Of Information Act to request
material relating to Bush's spotty record while in office," CIS director
Catherine Rocklin said. "But then we realized that the information was readily
available at the corner newsstand, on the Internet, and from our friends and
neighbors who pay attention to the news."
According to Rocklin, the most damning documents were generated at roughly
one-day intervals during a period beginning in January 2001 and ending this
week. The document's sources include, but are not limited to, the U.S. newspaper
The New York Times, the London-based Economist magazine, and the well-known
international business and finance record, The Wall Street Journal.
"Factual data presented in these publications indicates that Bush took
little or no action on issues as widely varied as the stalled economy,
increasing violence in post-war Iraq, and the lagging public education system,"
Rocklin said. "The newsprint documents also reveal huge disparities between the
ways Bush claimed to have served Medicare patients, and what he actually
did."
That's really the point in this election.
Uh, But What About The Facts?
This Administration has had a very convenient way of avoiding answering questions it doesn't like. And the whole National Guard document issue has been another example of that.
Even if you agree that the documents are forgeries, what about the fact that Killian's secretary stated that the documents are forgeries, BUT they accurately reflect what he thought and said at the time about Bush? (It's also really telling that the night of the CBS News story, the White House was not disputing that the documents were authentic, increasing the likelihood that they knew, as Killian's secretary stated, that the information contained in them was accurate.)
Let's remember, back when the Richard Clarke bombshell hit in March 2004 that the Administration had been negligent in dealing with Al Qaeda pre-9/11 and that it had been obsessed with Iraq, the White House stated that Clarke was lying when he stated that he had a private meeting with Bush on September 12, when Bush agressively told Clarke to "find out" if there was a link between Saddam and 9/11. The White House said that it had no record that any such meeting took place. Well, since that meeting was with the President, Bush must have said that no meeting took place for them to issue that statement.
We now know, based on the 9/11 Commission Report, Rice's testimony, and the White House's own withdrawal of that initial statement, that Bush was lying, all in an effort to discredit Clarke. So let's remember that when we think about Bush and his statements about his service in the National Guard.
When are we going to hear answers to these questions? My guess is not before January 2005.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Be Back Up and Running Soon
Sorry for the radio silence -- a combination of a trial and general malaise after the Swift Boat hit made for minimal posts. But now we're in the home stretch and with the debates coming up, things could get interesting. I'll be back up this week.
