speed kills-? The pace of the campaigns are ramping up fast

[tobius]

looks like the bush strategy is to start with more ad buys and 24/7 blanketing of the airwaves up until summer. The hope is to define kerry to the majority of the general public who, as of now, have very little recognition of him. the speed of the campaign is light speed- rimpages, emails, and all nighters are necessities.

"Technology and the sheer acceleration of news coverage have combined to produce a presidential campaign that is faster and more frenetic than ever before, reducing response time to mere minutes. Although campaigns have been in rapid response mode since the days of Bill Clinton's 1992 war room, Bush and Kerry operatives now flood reporters with e-mail attacks and BlackBerry responses, arrange conference calls and wage a Web war complete with online video -- a far cry from the faxed statements of an earlier era.
The stakes are considerable. In a campaign that is striking for its early intensity and daily negativity, each side is trying to frame the debate -- Bush by painting Kerry as big on taxes and soft on defense, and Kerry by depicting the president as a failure on the economy and Iraq. Each newspaper headline, television sound bite or Internet posting burnishes or blemishes the candidates' image.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9216-2004Mar19?language=printer
"If John Kerry is going to give a series of speeches on veterans' issues, the right time for us to act is while he is giving those speeches, not two days afterward," said campaign press secretary Terry Holt. "It's extremely important to do it in the same news cycle so his words don't go unchallenged. He went from playing offense to playing defense in the space of minutes. Instead of attacking the president, he was defending his bad votes in supporting the troops."


is kerry's team up to the job? now is the time that the image will be attempted to be seared into peoples minds. The summer will be a down time as always and those impressions can take hold and stick.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/18/opinion/main607185.shtml

.....Responding to a Bush ad thrashing him for voting against last year's $87 billion supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan, Kerry managed an impressive trifecta of ineffectiveness: "I actually did vote for his $87 billion, before I voted against it," Kerry told a crowd of veterans at Marshall University, before going on to explain that the version he voted for would have been paid for by repealing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Which is to say, Kerry's first instinct was to move rightward ("I actually did vote for his $87 billion"), his second instinct was to strive for consistency ("...before I voted against it), and his third instinct was to retreat into the kind of inside-the-beltway legislative-ese that got him into so much trouble last summer and fall."

IMHO this next 100 days can make or break the campaign

[Old and In the Way]

1. No amount of spin will save Bush. He is toast.

The worst is yet to come for Dimson.

The only thing to fear is the security of our votes.

[tobius]

2. your optimism is admirable.

but kerry snowboardtng while the attack machine is starting to blast round the clock has me on alert.

[Old and In the Way]

7. I'm glad to see him taking time off.

This is going to be a long campaign. He needs to relax and recharge his batteries.

[jpgray]

3. You know, you could save us a lot of time

And just have 'the sky is falling' as your subject line for these threads--that appears to be the sentiment you are trying to communicate in your recent posts. :)

Relax. It's early in the campaign. As he proved in the primaries, Kerry is a capable campaigner. People who are proclaiming Kerry doomed already often sound like those who wrote him off earlier in the primaries--the DU crystal ball has a lousy track record. In that vein, there are some here who are anxious for Kerry to fail, because it justifies their agenda or carries on past arguments in some way or another ('MY candidate would have whooped Bush', etc.).

[tobius]

4. your right about kerry, he has shown an ability to come from

behind very well throughout his career. I guess I will have to get used to relaxing, maybe waiting for bush to pull far ahead will be a good sign.
thanks, needed to hear that.

[jpgray]

5. We should take these attacks seriously--you're right about that

It's when we stop worrying that we have to worry. :) However, I don't think this week has been as lethal as some would make out--at the end of the month we'll have a more reasonable picture of how things stand.

[tobius]

6. yes, it is reasonable to expect the playing field to be clearer then.

I don't expect anything magical to happen from my posts other than, being the political junkie that I naturally am, to bounce my impressions and observations off other fellow addicts.