W's flip-flops. This is an excellent point, and if the Democrats had deployed this during the campaign, it would have helped. (Provided that they had a different candidate, one without Kerry's and Clinton's addiction to playing both sides of every street.)
Franken asking for Oxycontin for the road was funny.
Democrats really don't have to run many negative ads—their watercarriers in the media pick up their talking points well enough that the Democrats don't have to pay.
When Kerry said "We have to get back to where terrorism is a nuisance" he did reveal a sharp distinction between himself and Bush (and most of the American political class.) Most of the American political class sees the war on terrorism, and thus Islamic terrorism, as something that will eventually end. Thus they want to fight an actual war, with tanks and bombs and enemy states, etc. Kerry says that terrorism requires a law enforcement approach, which is exactly the approach that didn't work in the 1990's. Indicting Bin Laden in 1998 didn't do much. Special Forces chasing him around the Afghan-Pakistani border have done more to limit his effectiveness than any indictment. One analogy would be to a health complaint—is Islamic terrorism more like a cancer or like an ulcer?
Political conventional wisdom is that swing voters like nice and react badly to shows of "meanness." This is what doomed the impeachment of Clinton. After Dean's flameout, the Democrats didn't want a mirror image of Pat Buchanan's 1992 "culture wars" speech.
Kerry did vote to kill most of the weapons programs on Miller's list. In 1984, running for Senate he pledged to kill them.
Franken asking for Oxycontin for the road was funny.
Democrats really don't have to run many negative ads—their watercarriers in the media pick up their talking points well enough that the Democrats don't have to pay.
When Kerry said "We have to get back to where terrorism is a nuisance" he did reveal a sharp distinction between himself and Bush (and most of the American political class.) Most of the American political class sees the war on terrorism, and thus Islamic terrorism, as something that will eventually end. Thus they want to fight an actual war, with tanks and bombs and enemy states, etc. Kerry says that terrorism requires a law enforcement approach, which is exactly the approach that didn't work in the 1990's. Indicting Bin Laden in 1998 didn't do much. Special Forces chasing him around the Afghan-Pakistani border have done more to limit his effectiveness than any indictment. One analogy would be to a health complaint—is Islamic terrorism more like a cancer or like an ulcer?
Political conventional wisdom is that swing voters like nice and react badly to shows of "meanness." This is what doomed the impeachment of Clinton. After Dean's flameout, the Democrats didn't want a mirror image of Pat Buchanan's 1992 "culture wars" speech.
Kerry did vote to kill most of the weapons programs on Miller's list. In 1984, running for Senate he pledged to kill them.
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