On a more serious note… will the mud flinging between the candidates be openly done or not ? Or better how much of it will actually be direct attacks ?
How does the US voter react to open attacks or “accusations” from one candidate to another ? Do they view it as desperation, bad taste or normal ?
From the studies I’ve seen, while most voters say they dislike negative campaigning, they also tend to vote more towards the canddate who throws the most dirt. Just another reason to be depressed at how the realities of democracy aren’t living up to the ideals, IMO.
Bush has that ability to use words the other person or group uses against them. In his second debate against Gore, Bush was stumbling badly, until he came up with this gem in support of school vouchers “I think it is racist to allow Blacks to perform generally poorly in schools and do noting about it.” (A paraphrase) Then he hit his stride.
I hope and pray. Please. Please.
I think that if the Prez plays the gay-marriage card in the environment we’re in - a quagmire abroad with dubious justification, huge tax-cut deficits at home with no jobs to show for it - it will emphasize his unseriousness in a time of crisis.
If he wants to be the President of Mars and a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, oh yes, let him go to it.
The problem for the Pubbies is, the angry voters are angry that they’re going a long time without jobs, the Bushies’ big tax cuts don’t help them much, and it’s harder to see just how totally they’ll have to retrain, relocate, and rearrange their lives for the next job, if there is one.
Anyone for a side bet on Michigan in November? (I’m serious.)
If I were Karl Rove, my strategy would be a combination of slinging as much mud at Kerry as possible, and a vaguer-the-better trumpeting of Bush’s ‘successes’ on matters abroad (Saddam bin Laden 9/11 terror caves flag) and at home (more people keeping more of their own money, economy’s getting better and jobs are being created) and have a toolbox full of strategies for appearing to address specifics without really doing so. Use the bully pulpit, use the acres of money, hope it staves off the coming collapse in public support for Bush until at least Wednesday, November 3.
Feh. And if he focused on those issues, he’d be called “out-of-touch” by Democrats for not dealing with more day-to-day issues.
Sure. It’s not like 80% of the country is against gay marriage. It’s not like championing a constitutional amendment won’t rally the Religious Right. And it’s not like Kerry is going to be stuck either insulting his base or insulting the middle trying to figure a way past this issue.
No, the advantage for the Republicans is that the only angry voters out there are the Democrat partisans who continually carp about 2000, Max Cleland, and the eeeeeevil of the Iraq War, then make shadowy hand gestures towards consipracy theories that Bush knew about 9/11, maybe planned it all along, and that he’s rigging the voting machines so he can declare martial law. Kerry may be the nominee, but Dean is to many people the spirit of the Democrats for 2004, and so long as Democrats can’t control their inner Dean-ness, they’ll be planting fodder for the Republicans all year long.
Out of touch for dealing with jobs? Only if he keeps ‘dealing’ with that one by throwing more tax cuts at the rich.
However the country feels about gay marriage, Bush’s problem will be getting people outside the Pat Robertson Jihad to care about it, this year.
Kerry’s appropriate response is, “I think Congress and the country have bigger things on our plate right now than this, like how to find good jobs for millions of Americans who need them.”
Believe that if you want. I just hope Karl Rove keeps believing it, too, until it’s too late.
Izzat so? Seems to me that Dean’s the guy who faded like snow in April when there was the first sign of a plausible alternative. My bet is that to possible swing votes, Dean’s the guy who was a bit too far out, and who was accordingly invited by the party to take a hike. YMMV, but we’ll find out over the upcoming months.
Bush is going for the strong man image. His campaign slogan this time around will be: President Bush. Strong Leadership in Times of Change.
We’ll start seeing it everywhere once the president figures out how get his ad footage out from under its copyright problems.
Ah, but then you get Bush saying, “Well, is it moral to leave a madman like Hussein in power?”
I could only dream of Kerry replying, “Your daddy thought so.”
Of course, if Bush were actually to say that, it would be more along the lines of “Well…ummm…you see…Hussein…erm, he’s a madman and, umm…leaving him in place just wasn’t the ummm…moral thing to umm…do. Do you hate America, Mister umm…Kerry, or do you just umm…love Saddam Hussein?”
-Joe, expecting a variation on “If it does not fit, you must acquit”
Oh I dunno.
Not that I have a whole lot of faith or anything, but being from Wisconsin, I was around to see Feingold’s initial senate run against Mark Neuman.
Feingold ran an entirely positive campaign. As a matter of fact, the only thing that could be remotely considered attack campaigning were ads making fun of Neuman’s attack ads.
So, there may be hope after all.
-Joe, not too hopeful
If John Corrado’s latest oeuvre is an illustrative example, then Bush is going to have to campaign as if the economy, jobs, and lying into a war just aren’t all that important, compared to the great job he’s doing with a chief executive’s core responsibilities of … well, what exactly, John? Preventing the grave and gathering threat of gay marriage? You’re serious?
Keep whistling. Only got 9 months to go.
Contrary to uninformed perception, John Kerry can’t use his wife’s fortune to run for President. She can’t give him the money; that would violate campaign finance laws governing contributions. And it is unlikely she could loan the campaign money and then forgive the amount; that would be seen as a subterfuge to avoid the campaign contribution limits.
USA Today had a good article about this in Monday’s edition (see page 9A). Already, Mr. Kerry has obtained a $6.4M loan on 12/24, which uses his home as collateral. There is a feeling this will be a financial squeeze at a critical time, since he will be precluded from using contributions obtained after July 27 for paying off the loan. Likely, this will force him to repay the loan just before the primaries, though one can certainly surmise that he might get the loan re-issued for the actual presidential race. Still, that would be even tougher to repay, because it would have to come from contributions made prior to November 3 (under the new campaign finance law, post-election contributions from campaign donations to personal debts is limited to $250,000).
Now, if Teresa Heinz Kerry were running, SHE would have something like $500M to work with of her own, though presumably she wouldn’t want to spend all of it to become the leader of the free world. And I’ll note that even then, combatting the $250M plus the Republicans are amassing would require that she use more than “petty cash”.
You think he couldn’t get the money because it would be a subterfuge? Well, of course not, there are no such things as workable subterfuges in American politics. How silly to think it.
Call me naive, then, because I’d like to think Kerry has a bit more integrity than his Republican naysayers.
Ah, yes, I love it when people refuse to use basic brainpower because they don’t like a particular poster.
If he was going to use his wife’s fortune, why bother taking out a very expensive, possibly difficult to retire loan? Why take out a loan back in 1996 which he struggled to pay off, a loan based on the exact same collateral? Duh.
If you’re going to post a silly “explanation”, you’re going to have it called silly. That’s the price you pay here in GD.
Now, where do you think the money to pay for the mansion came from? Who can pay off the mortgage if she wants to? Isn’t it just possible that the house is a way to launder the cash - a “subterfuge” if you will? And, if you think he couldn’t possibly do that because it might violate FEC standards, do you really think any pol has ever really given a damn about that? They can impose token fines, after the election, and they hardly ever get reported.
It is truly hard to understand how anyone could reach adulthood and still think that something couldn’t happen just because it might be illegal.
Hehehe, like a trout to the fly, they always rise.
I’m going to assume that someone hasn’t read the actual article from USA Today I referenced, or they’d see how ridiculous their post is. (Ridiculous = open to ridicule, such as being received here).
Let’s apply rational thought here. Hard concept, I know, for some.
Mr. Kerry owns part of a home. Even supposing he got the money for his part from his wife (quite possible, actually, but Mr. Kerry isn’t saying), he now has mortgaged that ownership interest to a bank (Mellon Trust of New England, to be precise, and we do strive for precision here). This is not his first such venture. In 1996, he did the same thing to obtain a loan of $1.9M. He took three years to pay that loan off. He did so by raising money from campaign contributors. It was, at that time, legal to do so (now, he can’t do that after the end of the primary season).
While $250M is not pocket change for Teresa Heinz Kerry, $1.9M certainly is. If the Kerry’s were interested in attempting back-door donations to avoid the campaign finance laws, they could have done so with the prior loan, and saved a bundle in interest payments in the process, probably with far less “stink” than if they attempt it during a presidential election (we know how the pundits and grundge-draggers of the right love to grab ahold of such “issues”). One finds it unlikely they will attempt it under the spotlight of a presidential campaign.
Of course, they might simply have Ms. Kerry gift Mr. Kerry with a piece of property that he can then sell and use the proceeds of to pay off the loan. But if they were going to do that, wouldn’t it make more sense to simply gift the property ahead of the election effort, THEN sell it an use the money, rather than obtaining a mortgage on the house? That would save interest expenses, and would be no more or less legal than gifting property to pay off the loan.
On top of which, $7.3M is penny ante money compared to the eventual expenditures of this campaign. Where else is Mr. Kerry going to come up with collateral for loans and mortgages which can then be paid off with sold-off assets from the Heinz fortune?
Of course, it just could be that Mr. Kerry intends to play it straight, and that the campaign won’t be drawing on the off-limits funds owned by his wife. I’d like to think that would be possible for the Democratic candidate, else how would he be any better than the candidate from the party of the well-to-do?
Of course, if you prefer, ElvisL1ves, you can continue to argue that the man who you will spend the next roughly nine months arguing should be elected president will spend his campaign violating the law. :rolleyes: Or, you could simply admit error in your statement about the use of Ms. Kerry’s money… 
Now, I can’t tell you how the whole show’s going to run, but I’m willing to put money on a conveniently timed Houssein trial, with the President showing how he helped these poor Iraquis close an awful chapter in their lives and all. Lots of ironymetres will go off the charts at that time, but it’ll work.
DSYoung, if you want to respond in a schoolyard way, there are places to do that. Doing so *here * makes it unlikely that anyone will bother to read the carefully-reasoned and cited, but still non-reality-connected, analysis that follows, although I’m sure you enjoyed writing it.
I was replying to this statement of yours only:
as unrealistic to the point of naivete. A candidate who wants money, and knows where it can be obtained, is not going to be deterred by toothless election laws. Is that not your real-world experience as well? If it is, why bother with the classroom lecture?
Oooh, that devious Kerry! Sneaking around with mortgages and such, rather than getting his campaign money in the clean, honest, All-American and aboveboard method employed by those sober paragons of integrity, the Pubbies.
GeeDubya’s war chest might get around 200 million dollars. You know where it came from, and so do I.
But think on this: if the people who pour their money into GeeDubyas campaign don’t get a return on thier investment…if all of this money still loses…isn’t that just about the most encouraging news our Republic could have? Power wrested from the grasp of corporate greed-freaks and back in the hands of plain ol’ folks?
Oh, and this just in…
**White House Backs Off Job-Growth Forecast **
"The White House backed away Wednesday from its own prediction that the economy will add 2.6 million new jobs before the end of this year, saying the forecast was the work of number-crunchers and that President Bush was not a statistician. "
Niether is he a fact-checker. Faulty intelligence from the number-crunchers.
This statement, as show in the following, is untrue, because Mr. Kerry can’t use his wife’s cash. Many people make this mistaken assumption about Mr. Kerry’s ability to use her fortune.
Unlike some who post here, I offered some reasoning for my assertion, as well as a citation to an article examining the issue. Some might even have looked the article up to see what it said; I tend to doubt the following poster accomplished that task.
The point to this post having been to show that the response on 2/12, instead of debating the conclusion that Teresa Heinz Kerry’s fortune was off limits to Mr. Kerry, or admitting the truth of that proposition, makes an assertion that Mr. Kerry, the probable Democratic nominee, would be willing to resort to subterfuge, probably illegal subterfuge, an assertion I suspect comes from the poster not because of any true feeling Mr. Kerry would do that, but because the poster has a personal animosity towards me.
Now, the poster proves the failure to read the article referenced previously, which dealt with these ideas. Further, the poster resorts to shaky thinking, as demonstrated in the next post I made, which I won’t repeat, since it is only a post or three up from this one.
Which brings us to the last post:
Quite to the contrary, I haven’t been “schoolyard” in my approach; I’ve resorted to facts and logic. Totally missing from the “con” in this debate, I’ll note.
I note that there is no attempt to dispute either my reasoning, or the evidence upon which it is based. There is no demonstration as to how it isn’t connected to “reality.”
Not true. The ORIGINAL assertion, for which the poster was taken to task, was that Mr. Kerry could use his wife’s fortune to match the soon to be amassed war-chest of the Republican Party and its candidate. Everything I’ve said is addressed to that assertion, and the continued failure of the poster to accept the error of that statement.
First, there are plenty of candidates who do not resort to violations of campaign finance laws to raise money; indeed, I’d have to say that the Republican party is doing a damn good job of legally collecting its money, and in the process making the Democrats rue their effort to stymie the use of big checks from fat pocketbooks to fund campaigns. But, more importantly, I do believe that Mr. Kerry is a person who will not resort to illegal efforts or questionable subterfuges to obtain the use of his wife’s money for his campaign. I believe that based on my estimation of his character (I certainly hope he’s at least as principled than the Republican candidate), and based on the evidence of his efforts in the past and present to avoid such efforts, despite the fact they cost him extra money, added hassle, etc.
So what is it to be, ElvisL1ves? Do you believe Mr. Kerry intends to use his wife’s money for his campaign? If so, do you believe he will do so through illegal means, or will he do so through questionably legal means, given that completely, unquestionably legal means are not available? And for Heaven’s sake, let’s see some intelligent debate this time, not merely knee-jerk reaction based on your inherent dislike of the present poster.