Taking Fire

We'd like to think the Kerry campaign checks in here regularly, but not even the magic of seeing words looking like they've really been published in cyberspace has completely sucked us into grandiose delusion, at least not all of the time.

But we offer not advice this time but assessment. We sense that Kerry supporters are getting nervous. The Bushies have had nothing but bad news for weeks, and Bush isn't falling, and may even have slightly risen in the popular vote polls. Kerry at times seems no longer visible, and we can't hear him, so it seems like he isn't saying anything. And on cable or in those battleground states, the waffle ads appear, and we're not talking about for the international pancake house.

So without commenting on the Kerry campaign's strategy per se, here are some thoughts... When soldiers in battle are on the screen, there are people who feel it unpatriotic to criticize the president, although in the supposed solitude of the voting booth, it might be a different story. Also, it's April going on May, and the election is in November; people polled may offer their opinions but how considered they are, who knows. There usually is a shift in the last month, and the pattern in recent elections has been that alot of voters don't really make up their minds until the last minute.

Politics is not really part of the mainstream culture in America. It's something everybody has an opinion on, but they know more about the candidates on TV talent shows. One outcome of Bush being in so much trouble the past month is that his face has been on the TV screen a lot more than Kerry's, and let's face it, a lot of people see TV with the sound off, or tuned out one way or another.

Kerry was on Hardball the other day and a few things he said suggested that consciously or not he's approaching this as a firefight. Right now he's outgunned---the Bushies are throwing $70 million going on $100 million in ad buys, they're attacking him from every official government podium they control as well as the ones they get because they are the government, and he's not even the official nominee yet. He's taking fire, firing back when he can, and basically showing that he's holding his position, they haven't touched him.

The convention gives him a stage, and an opportunity to define himself when more people will be watching. Then he's in the fight. When what passes for campaign rules kick in, and the parties have limits within which they can spend, he can go on the offensive effectively.

In the meantime he's doing what he can do: he's raising money for the campaign, he's targeting particular voting groups---college students for a week or so, manufacturing and other workers in key states for a week or so. He's speaking to 300 people at a time. Getting a feel for what people are concerned about, and what hits home with them.

Will it be enough? The Bushies are supposedly taking a page from the Clinton playbook and attempting to define Kerry in the spring, as Clinton ads did Bob Dole. This year has broken so many rules it's going to be difficult to talk realistically about precedents. Will these incredibly crude tactics work? Only if they make people stop listening. But events may well keep them listening. And after the conventions come debates.

What about the Nader factor? There was some polling that showed Nader might actually have correctly assessed that he's taking GOP votes as well as Dem. But other polls remain worrisome. The stakes get higher as Nader becomes the anti-war candidate. That's going to be a hard one. Somehow Kerry has to reassure people who don't really want to vote for Nader this time---who do believe that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush---but the war is getting to be too much. He's got to convince them that he can defuse it, bring the violence down to police level, without just walking away.

So for those looking for solace, hope, comfort: Kerry's most recent media appearances have been very good, which may not shift votes now but bodes well for the future. The media still falls for every Bushie stunt, but they've been looking for blood in the water, and they are not sensing weakness in Kerry. And as things get desperate in Iraq they might even move helplessly towards the guy who is making sense, who sounds like he knows what he's doing and isn't nuts.
The polls in the battleground states look better than the more general polls would suggest. And a poll of professional gamblers betting real money on the outcome has Kerry ahead by more than 30 points.