Democratic Desperation

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCCXC

James Taranto has it covered at Best of the Web Today, yesterday (brackets in original).

Garbage Time?
Fifteen days to go, and much of John Kerry's "debate bounce" has faded away. RealClearPolitics' "poll average" gives President Bush a 3.6% lead, 48.8% to 45.2%, with Ralph Nader grabbing 1.7%. Without Nader, Bush picks up 0.2%, giving him a 3.8% lead.

This is close enough that Republicans are in no position to get cocky, but with every poll now showing a Bush lead (except Time without Nader and Zogby with, which both have a tie), the Kerry camp has reason to be nervous. Their man did about as well as could be expected in the debates, and still he trails. An Agence France-Presse photo suggests the Kerry campaign is a "dead end." We wouldn't go that far — but with no more debates, what can Kerry do to come back? Blogger Rodger Morrow suggests that he is being forced to resort to a "Hail Mary" approach — attempting to score via a series of long passes that have little chance of connecting:

In the past 10 days or so, the Kedwards campaign has:

Accused the Bush administration of planning to reinstitute a military draft.

Recycled the "no blood for oil" canard of the looney left.

Alleged that the Bush administration is somehow in the pocket of the Saudi royal family.

Told voters that, if they elect John Kerry, "people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

Suggested that President Bush was planning a "January surprise" to privatize Social Security.

Advised Democratic campaign workers to launch a "pre-emptive strike" charging voter "intimidation" on election day even if no evidence exists.

Warned Florida voters that Republicans are "trying to keep people from voting."

Blamed the flu vaccine shortage on President Bush.

Twice called attention to the fact that Mary Cheney is a lesbian.

If you didn't know better, you might think they were getting desperate.

Of course, the problem with a Hail Mary pass is that there's always the danger of being intercepted, which is what appears to have happened with the Mary Cheney Hail Mary. On the surface, it was actually a very clever play, a way of gay-baiting while also appealing to gays (who saw it as a way of exposing what they see as Republican cruelty or hypocrisy on same-sex marriage).

The problem for Kerry is that a lot more Americans have children than have strong feelings about homosexuality one way or the other. People tend to be very protective of their own families and sympathetic to the protective instincts of others. It was the invasion of the Cheney family's privacy, not anything having to do with homosexuality per se, that got Kerry in trouble.

Now, it's true that Miss Cheney's sexual orientation was not a secret, and that her father had talked about it — but there's a big difference between talking about your own family (whether for political gain or not) and talking about someone else's in order to harm him politically. The Clintons understood this very well and made good use of Hillary in defending Bill from his scandals — from "60 Minutes" in 1992 to the "vast right-wing conspiracy" interview in 1998.

In our view, Hillary's own political ambitions made the Clinton marriage "fair game" to a much greater degree than Mary Cheney is, but we'd venture to say most Americans were more sympathetic to Hillary's privacy than we were. Tellingly, Robert Novak reports that "the only Kerry aide on the [campaign] plane who wanted the senator to quickly issue an apology for any perceived insult was senior adviser Mike McCurry, the former Clinton spokesman who is a calm, cool voice among the overheated Kerryites." In any case, it's hard to imagine Bill Clinton ever being graceless enough to say such a thing in the first place, let alone to insist he was right to do so.

P.S. David "Token" Brooks also has it covered at NYT, today.

John Kerry wasn't nominated because of his sparkling personality. He wasn't nominated because of his selfless commitment to causes larger than himself. He was nominated because he's a fighter. At the end of every campaign he comes out brawling. This was the guy who could take on Bush.

So nobody could imagine how incompetent, crude and over-the-top Kerry has been in this final phase of the campaign. At this point, smart candidates are launching attacks that play up the doubts voters already have about their opponents. Incredibly, Kerry is launching attacks that play up doubts voters have about him. Over the past few days, he has underscored the feeling that he will say or do anything to further his career.

In so doing, he has managed to squelch any momentum he may have had coming out of the first two debates. Some polls have him stagnant against Bush. More polls show Bush recovering from the debate season and now pulling slightly ahead. The blunt truth is that Kerry is losing the final phase of this campaign.

Let's review the string of heavy-handed assaults from the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

On Monday, Kerry told seniors in Florida that Bush is plotting a "January surprise" to cut their Social Security benefits by as much as 45 percent. "That's up to $500 a month less for food, for clothing, for the occasional gift for a grandchild."

As Kerry knows, that's ludicrous — it's a stale and transparent canard that Democrats have brought out in election after election, to less and less effect. President Bush has not entertained and would not entertain any plan that cut benefits to seniors. Bush would sooner give up any Social Security reform than cut benefits.

Kerry's second wild attack is that Bush would reinstate the draft. The administration, which hasn't even asked for trivial public sacrifices in a time of war, does not want to bring back the draft. The Pentagon does not want to bring back the draft. The Republican Party does not want to bring back the draft. Given the nature of military technology, it doesn't make sense to bring back the draft. There may be some in the bureaucracy taking precautions, but it is hard to imagine an attack with less basis in fact.

Kerry's third attack is the whole Mary Cheney thing. That's been hashed over enough. But remarkably, Kerry has not apologized. You use somebody's daughter to attack the father and his running mate. The parents are upset. The only decent thing is to apologize. If anything, an apology would make Kerry look admirable. But Kerry, in his permanent attack dog mode, can't do the decent and politically advantageous thing.

The fourth assault is Kerry's attack on the Bush administration's supposed "ban" on stem cell research. John Edwards's ludicrous statement that if Kerry was president, people like Christopher Reeve would be able to get up and walk was only the farcical culmination of a series of exaggerations about the possibilities of finding cures for Alzheimer's and spinal cord injuries.

I'm not trying to make a moral point here about sleazy campaigning. Politics ain't beanbag, and in the final days of a close campaign, exaggerations are the norm. I'm talking about competence and what this period says about Kerry and his campaign.

Bush's key vulnerability is that people fear he is in over his head. By lashing out wildly, Kerry muddles all that. Instead his blunderbuss approach suggests a candidate devoid of perspective, driven by unattractive and naked ambition.

Why is he doing this? First, because in the insular Democratic world, George Bush is presumed to be guilty of everything, so the more vicious you can be about him, the better everybody feels.

But there is a deeper assumption, which has marred Democratic politics for years. Some Democrats have been unable to face the reality that people have been voting for Republicans because they agree with them. So these Democrats have invented the comforting theory that they've been losing because they are too virtuous for the country.

According to this theory, Republicans - or usually some omniscient, omnipotent and malevolent strategists, like Lee Atwater or Karl Rove - have been tricking the American people into voting against their true interests. This year, many Democrats decided, we'll be vicious in return.

The truth, however, is that voters are not idiots. They are capable of independent thought. If you attack your opponent wildly, ruthlessly, they will come to their own conclusions.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

He was nominated because he's a fighter. I don't think so. I think Kerry was nominated because the pack broke mostly for him when Howard Dean imploded, and everybody else just jumped on the bandwagon in the front-loaded Democratic primaries that gave nobody much time to think about anything.

First, because in the insular Democratic world, George Bush is presumed to be guilty of everything, so the more vicious you can be about him, the better everybody feels. I started to notice back in June, more or less, that one of the Democrats' tactics was to slam Bush for doing whatever he did: don't let him move, don't let him blink, don't let him breathe without criticizing him for it. (The most ridiculous example of this was when Kedwards criticized Bush for making a campaign stop in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. They slammed him for going there this year though he didn't four years ago. Never mind that Bush was the first presidential candidate in three decades to drop by Johnstown.) I thought it would probably wear mighty thin after a while: I think it has now. And, since they've been slamming him for months for ordinary, everyday activities, they don't have anything left but demagoguery.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 10/19/04 05:46:16 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.