Democrats Fear Kerry Looking Like Gore

[CShine]

WASHINGTON - It's a recurring nightmare for Democratic strategist Tony Coelho — the party's presidential candidate portrayed as a flip-flopping opportunist, ill-served by a strife-torn staff. It happened in 2000, when Coelho ran Al Gore's campaign. Now, it's happening to John Kerry. Democratic leaders fear he's getting "Gored."

"What the Kerry people don't understand is, it's succeeding," Coelho said.

Scores of Kerry supporters like the former California congressman say their initial response is to remain hopeful, based on polls showing the presumptive nominee tied with President Bush while the Democratic Party is better funded and more united than in 2000. But they are worried about history repeating itself.

"No question, it's a rerun of 2000," said Donna Brazile, campaign manager for the former vice president's 2000 race.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&ncid=703&e=3&u=/ap/20040430/ap_on_el_pr/kerry_getting_gored

[sniffa]

1. kerry's a fighter

he's been swinging hard LateLy, and i'm proud of him.

[David Dunham]

2. People forget that Gore won in 2000, or at least got more votes.

[54anickel]

True. Right now I'd dare say they should hope to look so good.

[Walt Starr]

9. Gore wins by all counts

except the vote count in the SCOTUS.

The final count of votes in the 2000 debacale will always remain 5-4.

[mom cat]

24. Gore won flat out, he didn't just get more votes.

It's time to fight when we here Gore pegged as a loser. I just hope that we can stop another theft.

[Piperay]

25. Yeah, that's what I was thinking

so really they shouldn't get their panties in a bunch so fast because Gore had way more votes.

[question everything]

61. Except, since then we had the census

and the number of electoral votes has shifted. I don't have the numbers, but if the votes in 2004 would be the same, Bush would get more electoral votes, even without the fiasco of Florida.

[w4rma]

66. Shifted, but Gore still wins with Florida. (nt)

[thebigidea]

3. ...according to two FAILURES. Memo to Brazile: shut up.

oh wait, that's right - she only likes to get memos from Karl "Friend" Rove.

[Just Me]

57. Yeah. OK!!! Question: why would democrats PUBLISH such fears?

This seriously chaffs MY ass!!!

[Richardo]

Donna Brazile - sabatoeur of Gore's 2000 race.

IS she really on OUR side?

[lindashaw]

11. NO!! She and Karl Rove are friends, she says.

[readmylips]

4. Coelho and Brazil failed Gore....

They must be secret bush lovers. God, I hate that I have to be a democrat, party of those two idiots. Why can't they shut the hell up or just go and join Zell Miller.

[fishnfla]

46. sounds to me like they are trying to "gore" Kerry! nt

[RobertSeattle]

5. It's April 30th for crying out loud

Kerry can't come on too strong for several months - otherwise middle of the roaders will get tired of him. He needs to play this nice "mellow" game right now. Surrogates can do the attacking now - then Kerry comes in with the follow-through post Labor Day.

[AlinPA]

21. I'm believing this now; lets be patient, e.g., on his war record. He can

trumpet that later.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. Donna Brazile didn't know what to do then and doesn't know

what to do now. The real campaign hasn't even started yet. Tony Coelho did a crappy job, so why is anybody paying attention to his opinions now, other than to bolster bush?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

59. Next we'll have Susan Estrich's blueprint on how to run a kickass campaign

NOT!

[The Zanti Regent]

63. But Susie Sicko supports Bush

You forget that Suzie Sicko and her pal Pat Caddell are now solid Republicans!

[Mountainman]

7. Gore won in 2000 by 500,000 votes

I'll take a Gore win so long as they count all the votes.

Gore and now Kerry have the conservative talk shows giving Bush free campaign advertising 24/7 attacking Kerry. Bush has 100 mil more to spend. He already spent 70 mil and we are still tied.

This is another story to make you give up and go home. "It's all over, some think Kerry is Gore 2004." They repeat all the Bush ad themes in this article. Does that give you a clue? It's just another Bush gang attack ad thying to look like a news story.

Don't buy it for a minute.

[deutsey]

8. News flash: Gore won the election in 2000

He ran a crappy campaign and thousands of our fellow citizens were disenfranchised in the process, but he still beat Bush until the Supreme Court took it away from him (us).

[fairfaxvadem]

10. 2 words to Coelho and Brazile, "Go Away"....

They failed Al Gore miserably...That was an awful campaign crew. I don't think Al Gore's winning the election was because of them, more like in spite of them...

Kerry is keeping his powder dry like a good strategist. He's a quick learner.

You don't have to like everything about John Kerry. I don't. But I do want him elected next Nov and I think he and his crew will bide their time, spend the money wisely and we'll see a full court press starting this summer.

[maddezmom]

14. two others

"Fuck Off" Coelho and Brazile.

[Maat]

15. I agree with those who say everything is going well.

Sometimes the pundits who supposedly for Kerry (or in the clintons' case -- morris -- he always seemed to be working for the bushies), seem to be working for the bushies in reality. sorry for the half-baked expression -- i'm sleepy.

[KissMyAsscroft]

12. Even if Kerry is "Gored"..

He won the last election. As long as gets more votes than Gore did last time, (which he will) he will be fine.

If the worst case scenario is to be like Gore who WON, than I wouldn't be too worried guys.

[Cocoa]

13. only if whores like Fournier are successful

fortunately, we're onto them now. Not only were the republicans "Gore-ing",Gore, the whore press was doing it too, and it looks like they're starting in with Kerry.

[Shakespeare]

17. Fournier is NOT a whore.

A lot of the reporters out there are, but Fournier most definitely is not.

[robbedvoter]

39. As a Clark supporter I can attest that Fournier is a VICIOUS whore

what he did to Clark in the primary was almost Coulteresque.

[Shakespeare]

42. Oh? How so?

Fournier covered only the very beginning of the Clark campaign, and was then pulled back to Washington to cover other stories. If you have something specific you can offer, I'd love to see it. I say this as a Clark supporter, by the way.

I happen to know the guy--he's an excellent reporter. And the White House HATES him.

[Garion_55]

16. Dems who are panicking really need to read this article...

I found it the other day. It really does speak volumes and proves that things are fine right now. Kerry is in MUCH better shape now than clinton was this time in 1992. These people need to chill out, relax, let kerry take his time to do what he needs to do. Right now what he needs to do is raise money. Thats what his focus needs to be. The real campaign will start months from now.


Can Clinton Save his Candidacy?

BY DONALD LAMBRO

Donald Lambro is the chief political corespondent for the Washington Times and a nationally syndicated columnist with United Feature Syndicate.

This is a year of turmoil and terror in the Democratic Party: Their likely presidential nominee battered, bloodied, and ridiculed even before the general election has begun; angry, unforgiving voters appear ready to wreak punishment on the scandal-ridden Democratic-controlled Congress; and a fiery anti-incumbent mood may be sweeping the nation.

"He's too cute by far. He talks like a lawyer when he says he didn't inhale . I find it hard to believe. He should have just said it was a mistake. No one is going to hold one of those thing against him. But one thing they will hold against him is playing it a little too cute."

"Both of these candidates are so flawed that there is no possibility of their defeating President Bush," former New York Mayor Ed Koch said of both Clinton and former California Gov. Jerry Brown. "Bill Clinton has no credibility."
http://www.worldandi.com/public/1992/june/cr6.cfm

[demgrrrll]

19. I don't know about anyone else but during 2000 I was nervous when

Gore was maligned. I do not feel nervous now. I feel determined.
My gut instincts are good and they tell me that Kerry can do this, he is a fighter but more of a Braveheart, wait, wait, and then goes in
for the close. He will do it. He has to. I have to believe that to
work with the fervor I believe we all will need to through this band of grifters out of the WH.

[lancdem]

22. I know exactly what you mean

Besides, wasn't Tony Coehlo fired by the Gore campaign? Let the Kerry campaign follow their own strategy. Josh Marshall noted that one thing he likes about them is they don't change tactics just because Nervous Nellies/talking heads call for it.

BTW, I found Coehlo's comment that the Kerry people "don't know it's working" amusing. Really? you don't think they have a better feel for what's going than you do? They're not amateurs.

[question everything]

62. We really cannot compare these elections to 1992

First, there was Ross Perot who mostly siphoned votes from Bush.

Second, I think that nothing from before 2000 can be compared because of the rise and power of the Internet, of instant communication, of bloggs, of message boards like this one.

[West Coast Democrat]

18. Donna Brazile is an RNC Mole.......

don't you think?

[PaDUer]

30. I've wondered

that also.

[leftchick]

20. This is total BS....

Brazile especially has been hard to listen to these last few years. She is the darling of the repuke shows because she always says shitty things about the Democrats. A Pox on you Donna!

[xray s]

23. The real campaign will start at the convention

It will peak during the debates. Most people will make up their mind then. Kerry has to keep as much of his money as he can to wage the final push and counter all the free PR Bush will get in the media flying around on AF1 and takes his monkey stroll photo ops.

Kerry has to stay close for now and let things like the news and popular culture do its thing.

But he has to hit the afterburners right after the convention and never let up if he want to win.

Brazille and Coelho are jokes, they are the ones who let Gore get "Gore'd". I swear they all work for the same Great Whore in DC.

[leesa]

26. Certainly sounds like this is what the Democratic leadership wants

THEY are allowing this to happen by always going on the defensive. If they cannot beat Bush with his horrendous record, then they don't deserve to win. I swear that MOST of the Dem leadership works for the GOP.

[gratuitous]

27. What the story is REALLY saying

Is that the Republicans are using the exact same tactics against Kerry that they used against Gore, and the media aren't any better at reporting than they were four years ago.

It's the same old smear and slime designed to appeal to the attention span challenged, and the catering of the media to that demographic. A smidgen of hope in the story would say that the media aren't playing the game this time around, but no, there they are, laying down and whoring for all they're worth (about $0.02) in service to their GOP masters.

Unfortunately, this time around we have the Horrid Example of 2000 to educate us, and Kerry's not waiting around for the non-existent better angels of the media to do their jobs. And neither are we.

Get used to hearing the phrase "one term loser" Dim Son. It'll be as good a legacy as you can hope for.

[dolstein]

28. Looking like Gore? Nah, Kerry has much better hair than Gore did

But considering how much Kerry is paying Jacques, his personal hair stylist, he ought to have better looking hair.

[David__77]

29. Better to be "Gored" than Mondaled or Dukakised or McGoverned.

He can still win and be "Gored," don't you think?

[progressivebydesign]

31. Can I just start a new party???? Plleeeeaaaasssseeee?????

Stupid-ass, mealy-mouthed Democrats. We had some very EXCITING candidates in the primary race, but these same toadstools saw fit to destroy them and annoint Kerry as their man. What did they expect? He's not exactly Rambo, or Howard Dean, even.

Kerry is a fine guy, a war hero, etc.. I'll vote for him, but.. if they thought they were getting a cross between John Wayne and Harry Truman.. they were delusional. Kerry is pretty unexciting.. Every time Jon Stewart does a gag about him, it's hilarious. If they wanted someone to fire up the voters, they got the wrong man. If they want to market him as he is, then they'll have to be creative and stop whining.

Gore won by 500,000 votes... that's not even couting the various voting irregularities that stripped Gore of even more votes across the nation. I'd say Kerry would feel pretty damn happy to win the popular vote. Perhaps this Democratic brain trust is already lining up a legal team for the next election by Supreme Court. If they're smart...

[w4rma]

68. Kerry's advantage is that he is steady and stable, though. (nt)

[Merlin]

32. I'm praying the campaign 'till now has been intentional rope-a-dope.

One way to interpret the failure to respond in kind to these early Kerry-defining Bush attacks is that Kerry is playing Ali--letting Frazier punch himself out as he stands against the ropes and defends himself until the right moment, then lashes out to score the knockout punch.

I certainly hope it's been an actual strategy, because it's starting to look like not a bad strategy at all. The Bushies are $70 Million lighter, while Kerry has $80 million in hard money, and god knows how much salted away in soft money groups like MoveOn.org.

Despite all of Bush's blows, Kerry is still standing tall and running even.

Seems to me that Kerry's rhetoric, proposals, and attacks have been stepping up in the past few days. His speech today at Fulton MO was powerful, and he looked very Presidential. Let's see what kind of press play it gets. If he gets good press out of it, as I think he will, then this will signal the start of the real campaign, imo.

I don't really see Kerry allowing the media to do to him what it did to Gore. I certainly hope that's the correct analysis. Way too much depends on this one.

[monchie]

33. There's a grain of truth in what Coelho and Brazile said...

...but the way they expressed it demonstrates how little they understand the nature of the classic flip-flop smear.

Any politician, especially, but not only, a legislator, can be accused of "flip-flopping" just by the nature of how politics works. No two (or three or four) versions of a bill may be exactly the same; a legislator can support one but oppose another. Also, conditions change, and a bill that might be unacceptable this year may be perfectly acceptable five years later when the political and social climate is quite different. An unscrupulous politician--like, say, someone from the Bush Crime Family--will look at this record and make a dishonest commercial accusing this thoughtful, responsible legislator of "flip-flopping."

Here's another example: You as a legislator vote against a bill because it doesn't contain all you want. The bill is defeated, but later on, maybe even the following week, a new version of the bill makes it to the floor that contains what you want, so you vote for it. Is this really "flip-flopping"? Of course not, but we know that the Bushes and the Republicans will go to any lengths to smear their opponents, and a "flip-flop" smear is perhaps the easiest type of smear to make.

And of course, within hours of the Bush campaign's "flip-flop" smear ads appearing, someone at one of the Dem blogs managed to compile a similar list of Shrub's "flip-flops." I looked at the list, and even though I'm a harsh Bush opponent, I could see that the alleged "flip-flops" were often completely understandable and in many cases the right thing to do. That's just the way politics is done. Show me a politician who is 100% (or even 75%) consistent and I'll show you a politician who's completely ineffective and incompetent. You have to know how to go with the flow and roll with the punches.

The difficulty is, how does a candidate respond to the classic "flip-flop" smear? Does he do a tit-for-tat ad that's just as dishonest as the original smear? My gut feeling is that would not only be lowering yourself into the sewer with the Bushes and Republicans, but it would also be completely ineffective.

I really don't know the answer here, and I don't think I've ever seen a good strategy to defend oneself against the cheap "flip-flop" smear.

[robbedvoter]

43. Here's Brazile, Karl's friend, planning to "deliver" the blacks:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/21/politics/21BRAZ.html?ex=1083470400&en=cd457c688ece2667&ei=5070

Two years ago, Donna Brazile, then Al Gore's campaign manager, was engaged in daily combat with Karl Rove, then George W. Bush's top campaign strategist.

Today, they chirpily exchange e-mail, chat on the phone and write letters, indulging in their shared zeal for the inner workings of politics.
snip

"The Republicans are in charge," she said. "I don't want African-Americans to wait four years or eight years for the Democrats to get back in the game before we make progress."
snip

"She made some generous comments after 9/11 that he deeply appreciated," Mr. Rove said. "She is, first of all, a great American before she's a partisan, and she isn't stuck in the 2000 election."

[Dr Fate]

34. Solution- call Bush a LIAR. Use the word. Give TEN examples...

And then then on the next day, call Bush a LIAR again. Bring up 5 examples from yesterday, then add five more "new" lies. Oh yeah- and dont forget to USE THE WORD LIAR.

The results? Republicans will not be able to contain themselves- and the media will be on fire defending Bush- unwittinly INFORMING people of the lies.

Dont call it "Flip-Flopping"- call it LYING- and use the god-damed word.

When that one wears out, Kerry should say Bush is "scared of him" and if it's not true, then lets have an unscripted, no notes, televised debates- TOMMORROW.

Then the next day, you issue the same cahllege again and say- "Bush is scared of me, he refuses to debate, on TV, w/o notes or scripts. Suggest it is because he is "not that smart."

Do it again the next day, and say, "if I am wrong, then why does he still refuse to debate?"

The general strategy should be to GET REPUBLICANS TAKING ABOUT IT. That is the only way to get it in the media.

[snippy]

51. I agree. Fire the Liar.

The entire world knows that Bush is the most compulsive and incessant liar in the history of American politics.

Bush claims that John McCain has an illegitimate Negro daughter and said he would veto McCain-Feingold and the yawning boy was not there and was not yawning and besides he was standing some place else and Richard Clarke had complete access to Bush and Rice which proves that Clarke was out of the loop which is Clinton's fault which means that unnamed White House sources may not be identified even when Bush wants to even though everyone except Bush himself knows where he was during his National Guard service which was after he volunteered to go to Viet Nam but before he was no longer required to take a flight physical and about the same time that God ordered Bush to smite Saddam which is Clinton's fault because the 60 lines of embryonic stem cells and more arsenic in the water and more mercury in the air prove that republican science is better than sound science and the Bush administration did not illegally conspire to illegally reveal the identity of a covert CIA operative which resulted in 2 million new jobs being created because democrats support terrorism and are not good Americans just as the Jews were not good Germans which is why Bush said he would veto the creation of both the Department of Homeland Security and the 9/11 Commission but the White House is cooperating with the 9/11 Commission which is why the White House withheld documents and called the republicans on the Commission before Clarke testified and why the White House is not coordinating the attacks on the integrity and bipartisanship of the Commission since the dental xrays prove that Bush spoke with the CIA director everyday and did not ignore either the repeated warnings of the dangers of al Qaeda and Osama or the August 2001 intelligence briefing specifically warning of the upcoming 9/11 attacks because the United States is a nation with a mission and that mission is to bring freedom to every single person in the world which will cut the deficit in half if you do not count those parts of the deficit which will increase under Bush which is Clinton's fault but the boxes from China were labeled "Made in USA" which resulted in 2.6 million new jobs being created even though the $400 billion decorative Medicare turkey was not labeled $550 billion and was passed without bribery or criminal deception which proves that government spending under Bush has gone down if you do not count the increased government spending under Bush which is Clinton's fault and Bush's plane to Baghdad was spotted because before Saddam bought the uranium and became an urgent but not an imminent threat which is Clinton's fault Bush had no plans on his desk to invade Iraq since the invasion was not planned before Bush took office even though it was the subject of his first national security council meeting and in December 2001 Bush said he was focused on the military operations in Afghanistan and then the aircraft carrier was too far offshore for the Navy to make a large enough "Mission Accomplished" banner to describe the WMD we have found in Iraq some of which Saddam was giving to Osama for following Saddam's plans and using Iraqi hijackers on 9/11 which is Clinton's fault but everyone who pays income taxes got a tax cut which created 3 million new jobs and allowed Iraqi oil revenue to pay for the cost of the reconstruction of Iraq after the invasion by a small number of troops who would be greeted with floral program related activities except for the dead and wounded troops who are being brought home secretly which is Clinton's fault since Bush is the one who hugs the mothers and the widows and the wives and the kids and that is why Bush who will use the jawbone of an ass to force OPEC to open the spigots and who is responsible for good economic numbers but not bad economic numbers which are Clinton's fault wrote the poem that he did not write blaming Laura for dropping the dog.

There is no subject so somber, serious, or shallow that Bush will not lie about it. The only other option is not to lie. And that apparently is something Bush can not do.

Ridiculing Bush for his compulsive and incessant lying needs to become common.

FIRE THE LIAR

[Dr Fate]

60. Suggestion:

Break your post up.

Like this.

No one is going to read the whole thing.

If you break it up, people are inclined to SEE and READ your better points.

Just a friendly suggestion.

Doc

[SalParadise]

35. This sounds like an attempt to get a meme going

nm

[snippy]

49. Exactly. The republican party is very good at it.

[grasswire]

36. DISINFORMATION

This is pure crap, right out of the WH spin room.

Don't fall for it.

Kerry's doing just fine. The rope-a-dope on the military records was about as finely finessed as a political strategy could be.

Don't fall for the crap.

[KayLaw]

37. Balls

Big, fat, hairy balls. It's the media, stupid.

[robbedvoter]

38. Gore fired Cohelo. He started badmouthing him within 24h

Expect more "democrats' like this to "help": Zell Miller, Ed Koch, Joementum...

[Malva Zebrina]

40. Democrats Fear Kerry Looking Like Gore

well, he is. He is entrenched and we are held hostage.

[FailureNoOption]

41. Where does Kerry stand on gun registration for law abiding citizens?

Does he, like Gore, support gun owners registering their guns?

[Dr Fate]

45. The patriot act does that in a round-about-way already.

By following credit card transactions, magazine subcriptions, reading e-mails, etc - they already know who owns guns.

As far a Kerry on guns- I imagine that wont be a major issue for him. He knows to be "moderate" on that one...

[0007]

65. Who in the fuck cares? Other than stupid macho gun nuts

[w4rma]

69. I care. (nt)

[0007]

70. In this vain, I do too!!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

44. This election has nothing to do with Kerry.

It's all about Bush.

And he's a one-termer.

[Demoiselle]

47. "RE-defeat Bush in '04......."

I saw the sign today in somebody's yard. It sums it up. Relax, everybody. Kerry rope-a-doped 'em into demanding he release his
(oops!) GLOWING military fitness reports from Viet Nam, then he snapped back at them quite properly, reminding us all that Dick and George and the rest of them never actually served in combat. He was so effective (with a nice assist from my boy Wesley Clark in the NYTimes, that we say McCain WHINING about how awful this discussion was. Yes, for some reason the punditry is picking on Kerry ....but he's seen it happen to Gore, and I really believe Kerry learns fast and fights really really hard.. We're a long way from being defeated...the CBS polls look great...C'mon. We aren't even in May yet! Go sign up to work on the campaign or register a few Democrats or something and stop fussing.

[maddezmom]

48. the title should read "DINOcrats Fear........"

[rocktivity]

50. This has been a Karl Rove presentation

To make this story fair and balanced, it should have been noted that Bush is an even BIGGER "flip-flopping opportunist, ill-served by a strife-torn staff," and that Kerry has JUST AS MUCH "fodder to work with!" I also can't help but notice that neither Cohelo nor Brazile are directly connected to the Kerry campaign, so I don't think it's very "supportive" of them to point out how "scared" they are. This article is nothing short of a smear.

:headbang:
rocknation

[sjdnb]

52. Better than looking like Bush right now

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040430/481/ans10204300859

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040430/481/bag10404301347

[bleedingheart]

53. Gore still won the popular vote and yet he is always labeled the

loser.... in spite of the smear machine he still garnered more votes.

What the Dems didn't learn was that they needed to bare some teeth and growl back at the repuke bastards.

It is time to roll up the sleeves and start hitting the repukes hard.

[PATRICK]

54. Bush dominates the news

All publicity is good publicity especially if the press is obviating and deflecting all the damage.

At the same time Bush ads and meme parrots are sneaking around the edges, leaving Kerry on a neglected desert island of no notice.

Luckily this is way early for such an absurd strategy to work. Bush's credibility is being carved out like a pumpkin, scary face and all. Kerry wants to be more like the stealth Clinton when Perot and Bush ate each other alive. In this instance however it is the attacks on Kerry that are going in stealth, absurd and outrageous as they are even by the low Bush standards of the past.

What Bush is still waiting for in this mesmerizing dance of death is another terrorist attack. I remember Nixon practically begging for a war somewhere, except that his policies had succeeded in making the world seem safe for impeachment.

This is one of those things the supposedly mindless media is waiting for- to be duly surprised and rallying America again around Sauron. Kerry cannot be beaten so he must be lied about then quickly ignored. Then distraction again(even if Bush looks bad) then repeat the cycle.

This is not Gore. It is much more insane, much worse, grander and more attention getting, but it can all collapse. Kerry hopefully can puncture the balloon instead of being pushed to the side. It will take more than fiery speeches or the fatal error or self-destructing like Bush is just to get attention.

They also are trying desperately to orchestrate June 30th or another big distraction. The shell game is in furious motion. The suckers are awed.

But it is not the simpleminded meme. There aren't enough dumb people left to impress. They can't even keep it up in Yahoo chat rooms and they are outgunned by Bush haters. It's the nuttiness and blindness of it all, the confusion of panic, the smoke screen laid down by the wounded destroyer readying its depth charges. The inner branding of Dems fearing that Kerry is a "Gore" is yet another injection of GOP poison. If you ran down the REAL sources of that "fear" I bet it would go right back to the parrot jungle or the few idiots in our party who get suckered regularly. THEY are the problem and unlike Gore, THEY are still doing the damage. THEY still don't know Gore won that election despite Lieberman and jerks like THEM. Kerry is still poised to crush Bush and Bush is just edging toward a larger abyss.

[monchie]

55. Compared with April 2000, Kerry's looking better than Gore.

And I believe there are a number of reasons for that.

First, a lot more Dems, and maybe even more independents, are wise to how the GOP Smear Machine works. Especially considering how much money they spent on it, the "Kerry-is-a-flip-flopper" smear campaign is a flop. Yeah, they got a few more people regurgitating their BS propaganda, but Kerry's numbers have been stable while Shrub's have generally been dropping slightly.

Second, a lot more Dems, and perhaps even some independents, are wise to how the so-called "liberal media" have been whoring themselves to the RNC and the Bush junta. The more people realize that the talking heads are trying to propgandize them on behalf of the Republicans, the more immune people are to the BS spewing from the "news" media.

Finally, Kerry himself has fought back against the BS a lot more than Gore ever did. (Gore has himself hinted that taking the statesmanlike high road 100% of the time was not an effective strategy against the GOP Slime Machine.) But it is a balancing act. Kerry knows there are times to attack--such as his response earlier this week to the medals/ribbons smear--and there are times to take the statesmanlike high road--such as today's foreign policy speech in Missouri.

Overall, so far I'm pleased with Kerry as a candidate, even though he was not my primary choice, and IMHO he's shown more effectiveness dealing with the GOP Smear Machine and their presstitutes in the so-called "liberal media" than Gore did.

Remember, the Republican Slimesters and their media whores would pull the same kind of BS on Jesus Christ if he was the Democratic candidate.

[robbedvoter]

56. Dear Donna, read this:

There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color than white can self-govern..)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040430-2.html

[koopie57]

58. I hope that

Kerry isn't going to fall for this load of crap. I think that Gore started flip flopping when people like this started in on him that he was boring, or arrogant or shouldn't have sighed during the debates. I hope Kerry tells them to be helpful or to get out of the way. He has done just fine being the man he is and these loosers need to get a different hobby. Why would they say this? What possible good is it doing? Well, good for Bush I guess.

[0007]

64. I don't give a fuck if Kerry looks like Donald Duck

as long as he can defeat junior this fall.

[mvd]

67. I don't trust these messengers for one thing

The good news is that Kerry will have to get noticed closer to the election. Right now, any more coverage by our corporate media could very well be bad coverage. Be careful what we ask for - lol. He can make waves just by going out and interacting with the people, and he must give good response soundbytes after being attacked. Also, looks like he's getting the money for some ads if needed.