ed in the Financial Times today]

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

___

Dave Farber  +1 412 726 9889



...... Forwarded Message .......
From: "Robert C. Atkinson" <rca53 () columbia edu>
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 10:19:44 -0400
Subj: [Fwd: Richard Medley op-ed in the Financial Times today]



-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Richard Medley op-ed in the Financial Times today
Date:   Thu, 2 Sep 2004 09:35:19 -0400
From:   jzufolo () medleyadvisors com
To:     jzufolo () medleyadvisors com


Kerry Has Lost Control of His Own Campaign By Richard Medley: Thursday, 
September 2, 2004 Financial Times (London, England) Copyright 2004 The 
Financial Times Limited Imagine - a US campaign advertisement aired just 
before the November 3 US presidential election closes with the simple 
statement, "John Kerry: Liar, Traitor, Opportunist". Harsh? Excessive? 
Perhaps, but a series of historic mistakes by Mr Kerry's campaign has 
allowed the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the anti-Kerry war veterans, to 
change the course of the presidential race and set the Democratic 
challenger up for a barrage of such charges over the next month. The real 
damage is not yet visible. Forget the current polls. George W. Bush was 
always going to pull even with Mr Kerry around the time of his convention. 
Campaign officials on both sides agree that the ads launched by the Swift 
Boat vets last month shaved only a couple points off Mr Kerry and that the 
race is a dead heat. What hurts Mr Kerry is that he has lost control of the 
news cycle and the rhythm of this campaign. And that is a big problem for a 
challenger. Unseating an incumbent is always a two-step process. First, the 
incumbent has to make himself vulnerable. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton 
were never going to lose their re-election ssbids; they had strong 
economies and no serious foreign policy humiliations to explain. Jimmy 
Carter and George H.W. Bush were vulnerable and paid the price. But 
vulnerability alone is not enough. The second step requires the challenger 
to "make the sale" with voters by convincing them he could do a better job 
on the defining issue of the campaign. The Bush campaign knew from late 
last year it was vulnerable and its planning was designed to keep whomever 
the Democrats nominated from sealing the deal with voters. That is why the 
Bush team could hardly believe its luck when Mr Kerry took the stage at the 
Democratic convention in Boston and made national security and his military 
record the centrepiece of his campaign. Convincing voters that a Democrat 
would better protect America than a Republican is a tough sale. The 
devastatingly effective Swift Boat vets' media blitzkrieg - two weeks of 
lightly funded ads accelerated by a media feeding frenzy - made it nearly 
impossible. Indeed, the Swifties have handed Mr Bush control of the 
election dynamics for the first time this year. Unless Mr Kerry can regain 
the momentum, he will lose. Mr Bush is well aware of that and the 
Republicans have a simple strategy to stay in control until November. A 
second round of Swift Boat veteran ads is now under way - funded by a 
massive inflow of donations via the group's website. These ads use Mr 
Kerry's testimony to Congress accusing American soldiers of war crimes in 
Vietnam. Whereas the earlier ads, while questioning Mr Kerry's integrity, 
were largely untrue, the new ones use Mr Kerry's own words to make him look 
a traitor. Sure, the Kerry campaign can complain that his words are taken 
out of context, but that does not convince voters and keeps Mr Kerry 
reacting rather than dictating the campaign news flow. Let local television 
stations interview veterans about how they feel about those ads, and this 
part of the strategy is complete. With the contest moving into full swing, 
the formal Bush campaign can take over again. The Bush ads in coming weeks 
will reintroduce the already weakened Mr Kerry to voters as a senator so 
bereft of accomplishment in 20 years that he runs a campaign based on a few 
months in the jungle 30 years ago rather than on his record in Washington. 
This is Kerry the lightweight, unprincipled waffler and flip-flopper. These 
ads proved effective in the spring, keeping the contest close despite bad 
news from Iraq and the findings of the 9/11 Commission. To escape this 
trap, Mr Kerry must regain control of the campaign dynamics before Mr Bush 
has finished defining him to voters. He can always hope that tomorrow's 
unemployment number is so damaging that the economy becomes the dominant 
theme. But life rarely works in that generous way. The Kerry campaign does 
have some blistering anti-Bush ads ready to run as the convention glow 
fades. Those will certainly guarantee that the campaign turns more personal 
and nasty than any in recent history; but can control of the campaign be 
wrested from an incumbent purely with negative advertisements? The record 
of that strategy is poor. All this makes it even more remarkable that the 
Kerry campaign failed to blunt the Swift Boat vets before their ads were 
launched last month. After all, the same bitter veterans have dogged Mr 
Kerry in every election for the last 30 years. Had Mr Kerry's ads tied the 
Swiftie attack to similar slander against John McCain in 2000, the press 
could have been locked and loaded to attack them as kooks. Then it would 
have been one more example of the "mean" face of George Bush. Mr Kerry has 
always been a great campaigner in the final few weeks of an election. He 
has come from behind often and therefore cannot be written off. But he is 
in the toughest spot in his history and has only himself to blame for that. 
If he loses, his decision not to come out early and hard against the 
Swifties will go down in history as a blunder equal in size to the last 
Massachusetts Democrat to lose to a George Bush. And no one wants to be 
Michael Dukakis. The writer is chairman and chief executive of Medley 
Global Advisors

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