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Given the atmosphere in 2004, had Kerry atypically engaged in an attack campaign he likely would have been slaughtered. He won many people in the middle because he was Presidential, not sleazy, and thoughtful. I know this because I live in a mostly Republican county with many more Independents than Democrats.
You forget that someone on the RW side could make up a lie, have it go to Drudge, and then be picked up - using the same words almost - by all the RW talk people, and from there it when to their cable shows. Do we have that network?
Kerry had a huge challenge in 2004, he needed to make a case that he would be better handling Iraq, but there were many who thought that challenging whether we should be in a war and stating that we were making a mess of it was inappropriate in a time of war. I know 2 very angry still that he repeated often it was not a war of last resort. To them, Catholics in their late 70s, this meant we started an unjust war. Yet, if Kerry didn't challenge on Iraq, he would lose - and he couldn't challenge without pointing out things that were wrong.
What % of the vote do you really thing a politician challenging Michael Moore would have gotten? I belong to a woman's group where we all saw 911 and discussed it. The reaction of this liberal Jewish group? They thought there were too many cheap shots. The connect the dots part depends on people already knowing and believing those links - and the majority of people didn't.
I do think that Obama will attack McCain ON THE ISSUES. He and his surrogates did a great job on that last week when they hit McCain for not knowing that we still had troops levels higher than before the surge. Did it work? Well, it hit a nerve - McCain said Kerry and Obama didn't understand troop numbers. (where in fact - every article I saw agreed that the Dems were correct.) Their next response to attack Kerry - claiming he doesn't care about the troops. The fact still remains that there was media that McCain was wrong.
Should Obama attack McCain's personality or service - no. It would backfire.
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