NYT talks about Repubs "Two-Prong Campaign" - Kerry needs one more prong!

With Rudolph W. Giuliani's pummeling of John Kerry on Monday and last night's softer tribute to President Bush by Laura Bush, the Bush campaign has laid out for the convention what White House aides said was the two-sided template of its election strategy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/01/politics/campaign/01assess.html

This is my problem with the Kerry campaign so far in a nutshell. The Republicans are running a "Two-Prong" campaign - bring down Kerry's numbers while bringing Bush's numbers up. Our campaign seems to be mostly "Single-Prong". Kerry's campaign is trying to boost Kerry's numbers while not spending very much money or energy on bringing down Bush.

We need a "Two-Prong" strategy for the rest of the campaign.

It's time to unleash the second "Prong" on Bush!

Can anyone think of two BIGGER prongs?

only on a positive message. I don't know who is running things but it seems like he definitely needs new staff. Clinton was a master at handling Bush I. He managed the media by coming back at every sleazy thing his campaign came up with, usually within the same news cycle.

It also worries me that Kerry's tentative campaign is going to throw off some of his base. Of course they want ABB but maybe they won't work as hard to get out the vote.

thread, but Kerry has spent 25% of his ad money on negative ads. Between Kerry's spending and Democratic-friendly 527 spending, they had equalled the Republicans' negative spending going into August. That probably slowed down some, since Kerry hasn't spent much money this month, but it still gives the outline of a campaign that isn't "taking the high road," as the binary-thinking DU chicken littles insist on implying.

I'm also unclear on what sleazy things the Bush campaign tried in 1992. During the primaries Clinton had already surfed through enough sleaze, with his "bimbo eruptions" and draft dodging, to drown an army. By the time the general election hit, there just wasn't anything left for Bush to use. Add to that the fact that the media were determined not to fall into another Willie Horton trap, as they had in 1988, and 1992 was one of the cleaner elections I can remember.

I keep hearing about Clinton's fantastic "War Room," but I just don't remember any dirty tricks they had to deal with in the general. If someone knows of any, please share them, because I'd like to know about them.

We all know the media is biased, but the right wing attack machine, even without the media problem, has been so much more effective than Kerry's.

It's like Bush has a plan, a long term strategy to bring Kerry down, and Kerry has a reactionary occasional weak attack, if we even get that.

Kerry has not even started to make the case against Bush, but to many Americans Bush has made a strong case against Kerry, even if the charges are false.

differently from the way his political rope-a-dopers were telling him to run his campaign. And that's a good thing.

...the media will start complaining about how we're running an "angry," "negative" campaign driven only by "Bush-hatred."

:grr:

The fact is that Democrats are in a perpetual bind because they, because of their historic claim to appeal to the "better nature" of humankind, are held to a higher standard of behavior, while Republicans, because of their connection to "social Darwinist" capitalism, are expected to do whatever they can to win, and so aren't punished in the public eye when they do so, while Democrats would suffer for "not living up to their self-proclaimed standards."

:eyes:

Stick a fork in Bush; he is done. Doesn't matter how many tines the fork has.


:mad:

Attack Bush on his (perceived) strength, strong and steady leadership. He acted cowardly and indecisive on September 11. It took him 3 days to get to Ground Zero.

Get vicious. If we can get the rights, use the Pet Goat video in ads. Spread the word he was in so much shock he literally could not move from his seat. There are plenty other examples we could use from that one day alone. Do like KKKarl, stick to that one issue, and repeat over and over again until people can't look at Bush without thinking coward.

They should look at the polling, see where Bush is strongest, and attack him relentlessly.

The problem is, the Republicans have a long term strategy against Kerry which they have been implementing for many months - we are getting close to the election and so far we don't seem to have much of a strategy to hurt Bush.

If we are going to be effective, it can't be hit and run, there has to be a sustained attack. We can't sustain an attack if it starts a day before the election.

Every day we don't win is a lost day.