I was so caught up in the sight of chicks with swords yesterday that I didn't spend the time I should have on the competing messages of the two campaigns. The website from yesterday's post is just the beginning. 75% of Bush ads attack Kerry (27% of Kerry ads attack Bush.) Bush does not just rely on Cheney and front groups. He is attacking Kerry from the stump in very personal and, might I add, not very presidential terms. Kerry is critical of Bush, but always in policy terms and always with that sad Kerry dignity, like he's president already. TAP has a good take on all of this:
In Traverse City, Michigan, on Monday, Bush mocked Kerry for spending too much time in Hollywood, selecting a trial lawyer as his running-mate, wanting to raise taxes, not taking a firm stand on the diversion of Great Lakes water, changing his mind on the war on Iraq, “playing politics with the judicial system,” and offering a “complicated” explanation about his vote against the $87 billion appropriation for Iraq. And that was just in one stump speech.
Note the key word "mocked." Bush is mocking Kerry from behind the Presidential seal. Leno mocks. I mock. Presidents don't mock. The President has made mocking the centerpiece of his reelection campaign. Why is Bush doing this? Simple, because he has to:
Like Carter, Bush is an embattled incumbent elected without a mandate and stuck trying to defend a failed presidency...There's only one strategy for an incumbent president(Faced with that situation): attack. Since the American people seem to want to hire someone else for the job, the embattled incumbent has no choice but to convince them that the only other available candidate is totally unfit for the position.
Pay no attention to that failed Presidency behind the curtain.
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