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

[Merlin]

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.