littleboxes
Silver Linings and Purple Hearts
Apparently the conventional wisdom is that John Kerry has been hurt by the Swift Boat ads. Here we are talking about them again...only further feeding the republican machine (it is amazing)...yet, given that our number of readers is just a tad under a million, we feel it's safe to talk about the swift boat crap without spreading the swift boat crap even more.
On the premise that Kerry has been hurt by these ads and that his aura as a heroic veteran has been tarnished or diminished we ask, how can anyone be surprised?
We here at littleboxes were worried when Kerry was annointed the nominee way back in Feb/March of this year. Many were impressed by his biography, espcially his war record. The thought was that the Dems were often vulnerable on defense issues and that the selection of Kerry would take that issue away from the Repubs. We can only say, yeah right.
No matter who was selected the Republicans were going to attack their patriotism and ability to defend the nation. And, given their amazing (yes, it is amazing) ability to do just that, no one, not even a "war hero", would be or could be immune. In fact, one could argue that Kerry was especially vulnerable to these attacks. What could the republicans really say about John Edwards? "He never served, and he voted against some stuff." Big deal...not quite as flashy has "lied to get purple hearts." The Dems in their efforts to defend themselves against attacks on their patriotism and defense policy, may have actually opened themselves up to more attacks! They certainly opened themselves up to more interesting attacks, attacks that are more likely to warrant incessant news coverage. It is possible that John Edwards would have been more able to focus the public's attention on actual issues instead of arguments among veterans of a controversial war. Very few things captivate the American imagination as much as Vietnam (an informal poll of our staff put it at fourth behind sex,food, and knitting?) and the Repubs have done a great job of distracting everyone from actual issues.
But, maybe Kerry can survive these attacks. However, no matter how often Bush's shortcomings as president and as a person are pointed out, borderline or independent voters will not be compelled to vote against him unless they feel a strong reason to vote for Kerry. We here at littleboxes don't think that "doing things differently" qualifies as reasons to be compelled to vote for Kerry. All candidates say they would do things differently. That qualifies as not exciting. People who vote for Bush actually like things about him. What can people like about John Kerry? There are probably many things but, in our view, the Dems are not doing a good job of emphasizing these things.
p.s. It gets even better. Now they are going to run more ads "against the wishes of Pres. Bush" demonstrating that they are not an arm of the campaign. Brilliant. Media takes the bait. Dems cannot attach the Ads to Bush, he accepts no blame.
On the premise that Kerry has been hurt by these ads and that his aura as a heroic veteran has been tarnished or diminished we ask, how can anyone be surprised?
We here at littleboxes were worried when Kerry was annointed the nominee way back in Feb/March of this year. Many were impressed by his biography, espcially his war record. The thought was that the Dems were often vulnerable on defense issues and that the selection of Kerry would take that issue away from the Repubs. We can only say, yeah right.
No matter who was selected the Republicans were going to attack their patriotism and ability to defend the nation. And, given their amazing (yes, it is amazing) ability to do just that, no one, not even a "war hero", would be or could be immune. In fact, one could argue that Kerry was especially vulnerable to these attacks. What could the republicans really say about John Edwards? "He never served, and he voted against some stuff." Big deal...not quite as flashy has "lied to get purple hearts." The Dems in their efforts to defend themselves against attacks on their patriotism and defense policy, may have actually opened themselves up to more attacks! They certainly opened themselves up to more interesting attacks, attacks that are more likely to warrant incessant news coverage. It is possible that John Edwards would have been more able to focus the public's attention on actual issues instead of arguments among veterans of a controversial war. Very few things captivate the American imagination as much as Vietnam (an informal poll of our staff put it at fourth behind sex,food, and knitting?) and the Repubs have done a great job of distracting everyone from actual issues.
But, maybe Kerry can survive these attacks. However, no matter how often Bush's shortcomings as president and as a person are pointed out, borderline or independent voters will not be compelled to vote against him unless they feel a strong reason to vote for Kerry. We here at littleboxes don't think that "doing things differently" qualifies as reasons to be compelled to vote for Kerry. All candidates say they would do things differently. That qualifies as not exciting. People who vote for Bush actually like things about him. What can people like about John Kerry? There are probably many things but, in our view, the Dems are not doing a good job of emphasizing these things.
p.s. It gets even better. Now they are going to run more ads "against the wishes of Pres. Bush" demonstrating that they are not an arm of the campaign. Brilliant. Media takes the bait. Dems cannot attach the Ads to Bush, he accepts no blame.
posted by littleboxes at 1:44 PM
1 Comments:
good post, man.]
--duus
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