http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/op...rint&position=
September 20, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Reading Kerry's Mind
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
I am John Kerry, falling further behind in the polls with only six weeks to go.
I've already shaken up my staff again; Cahill, Shrum and the whole Kennedy crowd were fine for the late primaries, but their war-hero strategy was all wrong for the general election. Now I've got Sasso and the Clinton heavy-hitters calling the shots. What can we do to stop the erosion in the polls and turn this campaign around?
1. Change the strategic target. It's not the swing voter who counts - I'm told there aren't that many of them. It's the Democratic base that has to be whipped up and turned out.
2. Ignore my peripheral messages that show no traction. Unemployment keeps drifting down and the stock market is going up, so the economy doesn't help me. Deficits don't scare people, taxing the rich shows no traction, and Bush has muddied up the health and education issues. Scaring the old folks about privatization of Social Security only drives younger voters to the G.O.P.
3. Stop wasting time magnifying the fury of the Bush-haters. Halliburton is not the Manchurian Candidate. And our supporters are no good at dirty tricks - that fiasco with CBS, which I pray that the D.N.C. had nothing to do with, will keep backfiring on us for weeks. The "fortunate son" business hasn't hurt Bush - and I wasn't exactly born in a log cabin.
4. Recognize that the war is the switcher issue and take a stand that I can stick with for at least six weeks. Blazing away at his past mistakes falls flat. When I hit Bush on misleading us, he hits me back for voting both ways, and it's at best a wash. So I have to focus now on the bloody present under him versus the bright future under me. Simple: "Bush is losing the war and Kerry will win it." That would give me a leg up in the debates, on which a turnaround depends.
5. Don't let Bush get away with being "misunderestimated" again as a debater. He's a master at the "better than expected" game. He has Bill Weld telling all and sundry what a great debater I am. We have to remind everybody that Bush, with his phony aw-shucks personality, has won every debate he's been in. Then, after I whip him or he makes some massive blunder - and I'll set him up for at least one - I'll slam him for being afraid to face me a third time.
6. Get a slogan that fits on a bumper sticker. My "W stand for Wrong" isn't working because too many hear "wrong" as beginning with an R. Instead, be ready when Bush's people trot out Lincoln's wartime "Don't Change Horses in Midstream." Come back with F.D.R.'s blast at Herbert Hoover after the crash: "Change Horses or Drown!"
7. Duck all the gotcha! news conferences. I'll get away with Imus and Oprah and Larry King and let the hard-news media holler about softballs.
8. Lower the opposition's beltline. It makes me sick at heart to have to claim that $200 billion for the war could be better spent at home. That isolationist knee to the groin sounds as if it came from Dean or even McGovern, but as Bush likes to say - "Whatever it takes."
9. Hit hard the monopoly-of-power horror. A G.O.P. White House and Congress means a Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade. We must convince women that a vote for Bush means a return to back-alley abortions. Edwards should be going for the jugular on this, but he's showing only an instinct for the capillaries. And that takes me to the 10th commandment of the new, improved Kerry campaign:
10. Above all, win back the women who used to be with the Democrats. Bush has them believing that the fighting in Iraq is for the security of their families. Too many women can't get it through their heads that Iraq is just a distraction from the global terror war. And Bush's pitch about "better fighting over there than here" - tying Iraq to Al Qaeda - closes what used to be our huge gender gap. So I have to move on to "while he's spinning, we're losing" - and never mind that it makes me dependent on escalation by Zarqawi and pessimism from C.I.A. flip-floppers who were wrong before but who now want jobs in my administration.
Yes, scared women are the key, so enough with my sensitive nuances. They want Mr. Tough Guy - from now to November, that's what they'll get.
-Rudey
) about who I was going to vote for.
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