"a Beltway maelstrom"

[CADsortaGUY]

A Kerry-Worrying Trend - Is It Too Soon to Panic? Evidently Not.

One word - "unity"



CkG

 

[SuperTool]

Why replace Kerry?

 

[CADsortaGUY]

The original article link goes to this:

"John Kerry Must Go."

That Village Voice headline may be a tad dramatic, but stories about disaffected Democrats are spreading like wildfire through the media forest.

Never mind that the Massachusetts senator is just about even with an incumbent president six months before the election. The naysayers are seizing the spotlight.

"There's definitely a Beltway maelstrom," says Democratic strategist Jenny Backus. "There are a whole bunch of Monday morning quarterbacks who live in Washington and feed a lot of these reporters. People use the press as a giant instant-message board."

No wonder Slate blogger Mickey Kaus has started a "Dem Panic Watch." Consider:

"Kerry Struggling to Find a Theme, Democrats Fear," says the New York Times.

"It's six months until the election, and Democrats are already having buyer's remorse," says John Fund of OpinionJournal.com.

"Democratic leaders fear he's getting 'Gored,' " says the Associated Press.

"The Trouble Is, So Far Kerry Stinks on TV," says the New York Observer.

Some Democrats are "pretty freaked out" by Kerry, says the New York Post. They see "a listless and message-less mishmash," says Newsweek. The man "has something of a gift for the toxic sound bite," says Time.

Kerry's spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter, scoffs at "all these unnamed sources griping," though some have expressed their reservations on the record. "We do know what we're doing, believe it or not," she says, recalling how the early obituaries for Kerry during the primaries gave way to stories that "we're geniuses." President Bush's campaign spokesman, Terry Holt, attributes the coverage to "John Kerry's own words and missteps."

Why all the downbeat stories?

? Democrats can't believe that Kerry is slightly trailing Bush after the violent setbacks in Iraq and the fallout from the 9/11 commission hearings.

? Handicappers don't understand how a decorated Vietnam War veteran running against a man with gaps in his National Guard record got bogged down explaining whether he had thrown away his medals or his ribbons 33 years ago.

? Journalists slavishly follow the polls in search of some new trend to divine.

? The veepstakes thing is really getting old.

"Kerry has not had a good few months, but I'm not sure that's particularly relevant," says Los Angeles Times columnist Ron Brownstein, who views the election as mainly a referendum on Bush. "It's not easy for the challenger to generate enough sustained attention before the convention to tell a story. Bill Clinton was in third place at this point. There's a tendency in the press corps to ride the waves high and low in these races."

New York Times columnist David Brooks doesn't see the pessimism toward Kerry as media-driven. "No one really loves him, and a lot of people are cool to him, so there's not a passionate well of support. Republicans think Bush is making huge mistakes, but still have a level of emotional commitment to the guy."

Strange as it seems, given that Kerry through the primaries, at least a few chattering-class members are discussing the Torricelli option, a reference to the replacement of scandal-scarred Robert Torricelli on the New Jersey ballot late in the 2002 U.S. Senate campaign.

"Look for the Dem biggies, whoever they are these days, to sit down with the rich and arrogant presumptive nominee and try to persuade him to take a hike," writes Village Voice columnist James Ridgeway. Kerry also might be struck by lightning the next time he goes snowboarding.

Most campaigns go through these turbulent cycles. In early September 2000, a front-page New York Times story warned: "Prominent Republicans around the country, including several who advise Gov. George W. Bush, say they are worried that his candidacy has floundered in recent weeks." Time's cover said: "Humpty W.: How Bad a Fall?" Matt Lauer said on "Today" that "there's growing concern in Republican circles about a loss of momentum in the Bush campaign."

Kevin Drum, a California-based columnist for the Washington Monthly, says that Kerry isn't a great campaigner but that "it's just too early" for such pieces. "I'm not sure it's anything other than [reporters] looking for a story. . . . It's pretty much inside the Beltway."

Kerry challenged the prevailing wisdom last week, telling reporters: "I like where we are today."

Early Warnings

News that American soldiers were mistreating Iraqi prisoners didn't exactly come out of nowhere, although it seems that way.

The New York Times reported last May that two dozen detainees had complained of mistreatment, quoting one man as saying a British soldier kicked him in the ribs and hit him over the head with a gun.

In October, the Los Angeles Times reported on negligent homicide charges against two Marines in the death of a prisoner, and said six others were charged with hitting and kicking prisoners. In December, the paper covered charges against a Marine officer who ordered prisoners to stand for 50 minutes each hour, handcuffed, with burlap bags over their heads.

In October, The Washington Post reported on charges against an Army commander who fired his pistol near a detainee's head. And several news organizations reported in March that six soldiers were criminally charged in the alleged assault and sexual abuse of about 20 Iraqi prisoners. Most of these stories ran on inside pages.

Amazingly, CNN reported in January that, according to a Pentagon official, "U.S. soldiers reportedly posed for photographs with partially unclothed Iraqi prisoners." The story sank without a trace.

Why didn't these reports get what political strategists call "traction"?

There were no horrifying pictures of the kind revealed by "60 Minutes II" and, later, The Post. It was hard to believe such practices were widespread. Politicians were not focusing on the issue, and the press was more concerned with American casualties.

In retrospect, these scattered allegations were missed opportunities for the media. By last week, the three newspapers and others had no trouble finding Iraqis who said they were mistreated in prison -- and playing up these accounts.

No More 'News'

CNBC has axed "The News," the flagship program started by Brian Williams when the network was launched in 1996.

The reason? "To have a more cohesive prime-time lineup," says spokeswoman Amy Zelvin. Which means making room for ex-tennis star John McEnroe's talk show, along with Dennis Miller's talk show. Which means news has become expendable.

NBC News President Neal Shapiro put out a statement praising the current anchor, John Seigenthaler, who will play a bigger role on "NBC Nightly News." Where, presumably, they still care about news.

A Spruced-Up 'Imus'

Get ready for Imus, the television show. Of course, Don Imus's radio show is already simulcast on MSNBC, but he has always been adamant that it's a radio show that happens to run on cable. Now MSNBC executives plan to move the I-Man and his crew from their Queens studio to a new set in Secaucus, N.J., to add more visual elements and glitzier production. One complication: Imus needs a way to keep broadcasting in the 9-to-10 a.m. hour, when MSNBC has moved on to other programming.


© 2004 The Washington Post Company

enjoy

CkG

 

[SuperTool]

Cad, why do you keep attacking #44?

 

[SuperTool]

Like that link I posted says, rumors of Kerry's demise have been premature . Zogby says it's his to lose. Bummer for you cons and neocons.

 

[arsbanned]

I'm glad you neocons find this comforting while Bush continues to turn the World into one big clusterfvck.
Enjoy!

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: arsbanned
I'm glad you neocons find this comforting while Bush continues to turn the World into one big clusterfvck.
Enjoy!

I got news for you, genius, it was already pretty farked up.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: arsbanned
I'm glad you neocons find this comforting while Bush continues to turn the World into one big clusterfvck.
Enjoy!

I got news for you, genius, it was already pretty farked up.

Yeah it was but we at least held the moral high ground till the asshole got us into a war of agression and turned the US into a piece of sh!t like every other agressor nation. PNAC.

 

[sMiLeYz]

Mind you... this was before the iraqi abuse photos were released.

Dick Morris says Dubya in trouble

April 20, 2004 -- BOTH of the polling organizations that track the presidential race in daily surveys have concluded that the contest has settled into a stalemate. Scott Rasmussen reports that for eight of the last nine days, President Bush has gotten 45 to 46 percent of the vote, while Sen. John Kerry ranged from 44 to 46 percent. John Zogby shows Kerry ahead by three and reports little movement either way.

This "tie" is terrible news for the Bush camp.

One of the (very few) immutable laws of politics is that the undecided vote almost always goes against the incumbent. Consider the past seven presidential elections in which an incumbent ran (1964, '72, '76, '80, '84, '92, and '96) - that is, look at the final vote versus the last Gallup or Harris polls. My analysis shows that the challengers (Goldwater, McGovern, Carter, Reagan, Mondale, Perot, Clinton, and Dole) got 85 percent of the undecided vote. Even incumbents who won got only 15 percent of those who reported that they were undecided in the final polls.

So . . . when Bush and Kerry are tied, the challenger really has the upper hand.

More bad news for Bush: Democrats usually grow 2-3 points right before Election Day as downscale voters who have not paid much attention to the election, suddenly tune in and "come home" to their traditional Democratic Party moorings. Remember, virtually every poll (except Zogby) showed Bush slightly ahead of Al Gore as the 2000 election approached - yet Gore outpolled Bush by 500,000 votes.

I had thought - and hoped - that Bush could open up a big lead in the two months after Kerry locked up the Democratic nomination. After all, Kerry is, in fact, way too liberal for the average American voter. But Bush's negative ads - though good, plentiful, and on target - lost their impact in April.

What happened? Iraq. The surprising casualties of this disastrous month let Kerry skate by the avalanche of attack ads relatively unscathed. And by now, Bush may have lost the ability to define Kerry

Lying behind the bad news for Bush is his inability to appeal to women in the campaign. His "stand firm" press conference last week was entirely male-oriented. His tough words and determination to defend the cause of the "fallen" resonated well with men but crashed among women.

The genders see the War on Terror in totally different terms. Rasmussen reports that men, by 51 percent to 36 percent, say that the U.S. is safer than it was before 9/11. But women are evenly divided, with 41 percent feeling more safe and 42 percent, less.

Women disagree with the entire Bush strategy of fighting terrorism. Offered a choice between "letting terrorists know we will fight back aggressively" and "working with other nations," men opt for fighting aggressively by 53 to 41 percent while women want us to work with other nations instead by 54 to 36 percent - a gender gap of 30 points.

To bounce back, Bush obviously has to staunch the bleeding in Iraq. But he also has to appeal to women voters as he did in 2000.

Then, he was a "compassionate conservative" committed to leaving "no child behind." Now he needs to speak of the human toll exacted by Saddam Hussein when he ran Iraq. He should speak about saving the children of that beleaguered nation. At home, he has to explain why a democratic - or at least a stable - Iraq means more safety for our families. He should discard the military-macho rhetoric and the bureaucratic references to American "credibility" and focus on values, human beings, children and hope.

If Bush permanently alienates women by his words and tone in the War on Terror, he'll throw away the issue that he needs to carry him into a second term.