90-Day Media Strategy by Bush*s Aides to Define John Kerry

WASHINGTON, March 19 — President Bush's campaign is following an aggressive and precise 90-day media strategy to define Senator John Kerry as indecisive and lacking conviction, with a coordinated blitz of advertisements, speeches and sound bites, senior campaign advisers said this week.

The goal, several campaign aides said, is to first strip Mr. Kerry of the positive image that he carried away from the Democratic primary contests and then to define him issue by issue in their own terms before the summer vacation season. The central thrusts will be national security and taxes, they said.

The aides said the strategy was planned weeks ago in coordination with Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political aide, while Mr. Kerry was battling for his party's nomination.

The aides are following a tight timetable, they said, and they want to have defined Mr. Kerry on their terms between now and early June, when they expect voters to stop paying close attention to politics, at least for a time. In addition, Mr. Kerry will very likely have a much larger war chest with which to fight by then, reducing the effect of the Republican media blitz.

(snip)

"The notion that you have a one-sided definition that takes hold five months before an election is ridiculous," said Bob Shrum, a senior advisor to Mr. Kerry. "I don't think the Bush campaign's caricatures are going to stand up to the reality. Voters are smarter than that."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/20/politics/campaign/20CAMP.html?hp

Good reason for donating to Kerry this week.

Help him to define himself to voters before Bush and his associates can.

Done!

...and will again soon, too.

Sure! That would be convenient in June ... CPA turnover, Energy Task Force, 9-11 Commission ... what else is happening around June?

Pretty soon, all these criminal investigations are going to coalesce into a boiling cauldron, and when that happens, they are finished.

I wonder what the big story will be this summer. Is some celebrity going on trial? Sharks?

and tuning out politics.

on vacation.