I'm not a huge fan of John Kerry. I don't think he has the vision, the long-term game plan or the wherewithall to truly reform what I consider to be a broken system. I cannot forgive him either his war vote, his distortions of a fellow democrat (Dean) or his perceived oppportunism.
However, I'll give the man this: He knows how to play the game and knows how to play it well. He will be an excellent adversary in the general election for one reason and one reason only: he knows that the most effective campaign is the one that knows how to never end up on the defensive side.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040213/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_campaign_message_
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In response to the Bush re-election campaign's attack video which charges
Kerry -- brought to you by the special interests the Kerry campaign has countered, without, skipping a beat:
This White House has never met a special interest it didn't like. In fact, George Bush took more money from lobbyists in 2003 than John Kerry has in his entire career, and has managed to reward them handsomely for it too -- at the expense of the environment, our economy and the middle class.
The Kerry campaign knows the best position a candidate can find himself in is offense and not defense. No matter what Bush throws at him, he'll find a way to turn it around and throw it back at Shrub.
This is one of the many reasons that the Dean Campaign lost so much support. Dean was never very effective at defense, let alone offense. If he had nipped the angry meme in the bud and countered with something suggesting that an aggressive stance is exactly what we need to respond to Bush, he might enjoy much higher poll numbers right now.
I feel much better about the long-term health of this country with a Dean Presidency. However, in the short term, I trust Kerry's campaign skills much more than I do Dean's. In order to think long term, we need to take a short term stance now: Get Bush out! There won't be any long term if Bush gets 4 more years in the White House.