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This is one of the few times I have agreed with Joe Klein because usually he is an ass who says stuff I don't want to hear (Time magazine current issue). It is not good that we took a hit to the chops reflected in polls BEFORE the Republican convention no matter how much we want to convince ourselves otherwise. Joe is the "umteenth" journalist (no, they are not all lying) who talks about lousy miscalculations in the Kerry camp on the part of his campaign staff because they are relying on idiot "focus groups" and telling Kerry to not REALLY attack.
He sites Carville's observation that these groups are stupid because they are always on their best behavior and give a totally inaccurate picture of what sells in America. He points to issues that could right now be dynamite for Kerry---for example, he talks about Kerry hitting Bush like hell on how much Bush has fucked up the war in Iraq (a goon government in Fallujah; and the playing patty-cake with the Najah situation, etc.). I so agree because I see that Kerry has, indeed, attacked Bush but it's on issues of jobs, economy, healthcare, etc. That's what Dems for the last 10,000 presidential campaigns have done--it's the typical Dem script!!! We are not hitting the core which is Bush's total ineptness on the job and his lies. We are doing a gentleman's sword fight when they are back street brawling.
We are now in a "situation". It is not some passing situation but rather one that gets worse as Bush roars out of his convention. Klein is correct that this campaign staff cannot now keep doing what before was successful until a few weeks ago. It now no longer is enough. Now it has to change and go after the attributes Bush is running on. 90% of these campaign appearances now have to be about Bush being an exaggerated liar about his abilities to fight terror. We have to accept that we were knocked down a peg by a Rove machine that knows what it is doing and we cannot just slosh through the "same old, same old" for the next 8 weeks. No there will not be a Bush backlash on the swiftboat issue (nothing has ever stuck to him). No, Kerry isn't going to hit him out of the park during the debates---no one watches the debates except people like us anyway and he isn't going to wait until then to attack Bush. He has to now lay down an image in people's mind that Bush is not only a fuck up ont he domestic front but that he is a total, inept failure on this war/terror front as well.
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