Following up on what I wrote earlier, the Politico has an article discussing the advice veterans of the Kerry campaign have for Obama in dealing with Jerome Corsi’s new book, The Obama Nation. Most of it boils down to, “hit them hard and hit them now.” That’s good advice, I think, and it’s the advice I wish the Kerry camp had followed in 2004. The book is full of lies sourced from blog posts, lacking any verification at all. It’s pretty breathtaking that this book found a publisher, even if Mary Matalin is the editor. Media Matters has a rundown of the problems in the book, if you’re interested in the grizzly details.
One thing I wanted to mention, though, was that I don’t think we can be too harsh on the Kerry campaign – at least in this instance. They saw that they had two strategies, to fight it as hard as they could, or to ignore it and just let it blow away. I can sympathize with their dilemma. The issue was nonsense and a lie, after all. But it obviously turned out to be a major miscalculation. As anyone who was ever picked on knows, the strategy your mom will tell you is, “Just don’t respond to them. All they're looking for is attention.” I don’t know how many of you have tried this particular tack, but in my experience, it’s not a winning solution. The Kerry campaign was trying to stay above the fray, and they stayed so far above it that they didn’t notice it was costing them an election.
The Obama camp seems to be taking advice from dad this time, and instead of just walking away, hitting Corsi right in the nose. If something that’s nothing more than a stitched together tissue of false blog posts and misleading information can debut at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, it’s really the only solution that makes much sense. I hope it works out for Obama a bit better than it did for Kerry.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
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3 comments:
My, how soon we forget. I would argue (and believe until the day I die) that Kerry lost because he was an extremely poor candidate, and nothing else. He offered the increasingly numerous progressive segment of the party absolutely nothing. People forget this is the same guy that ran on a policy of escalation in Iraq, offered nothing in terms of LGBT rights, and tried to out Bush Bush in terms of foreign policy and WOT ("reporting for duty"). He thought the political climate and dissatisfaction with Bush would be enough by itself. Now THAT'S a miscalculation that I hope Obama doesn't mirror.
I agree with you that John Kerry was an incredibly weak candidate and one of the worst ones the Democrats could have put up in 2004. And, you’re certainly right that the Swift Boat nonsense alone didn’t cost him the election. All the issues that you mentioned contributed, and any number of them could have helped out Kerry’s poor showing.
However, the election was still very close (Kerry lost by less than a percentage point overall), and any number of factors could have helped him pull it together. Ignoring the Swift Boat stuff until late in the game certainly didn’t help. I suppose you’re right, this one thing can’t be said to have cost them the election. You can point to any number of things that did that. But getting out in front of it early on couldn’t have hurt.
I'll give you that. He could have come off as a lot more viscerally disgusted, which I don't think could have hurt.
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