Since ever poll that has shown Kerry inching even or going ahead by 2 or 3 percentage points has had it’s own thread crowing about it, I thought that this poll likely deserved one too. Kerry got no bounce out of his convention, Bush jumps up 10 points or more coming out of his. Almost exactly two months until the election. Is the Kerry/Edwards ticked jumping the shark as we speak? If not, how is he gonna get some momentum going when he couldn’t do it coming out of the DNC? What strategies can Kerry employ since simply not being Bush seems to be losing it’s effectiveness? Any ideas from the teeming liberals on the boards? Bueller? Bueller?
Meh. Show me a poll taken when people are home to answer their phones, not away on Labor Day weekend.
He got a bump from the convention. I anticipated it.
Now, of course, he’s got to try and spin the economy, the job picture, Iraq, Afghanistan, the porousness of US borders and make himself out to be one of those compassionate conservatives he prattled on about in 2000, all while downplaying those aspects of his administration that are decidedly not compassionate.
It won’t last.
Wake up call! Come on, Kerry, TAKE THE GLOVES OFF! You have an opponent who does not hesitate to fight dirty. We either do the same or we lose.
Fear works. A leader who has to use it to bump his numbers deserves no one’s vote.
I would say that his last chance to do this , is in the up coming debates , but having said that , its more likely George Bush’s election to lose.
I can’t think of any particular strategy at this time , where JFK could magically turn it around , its going to be hard fought tooth and nail , no silver bullets are in the magazine.
Declan
Kerry’s running a brutally bad campaign, Edwards has been invisible, and it’s right after the Republican convention. No surprise at all.
Why Kerry has been playing pattycake with Bush I don’t understand. Where are the attack ads? God knows there’s enough to attack. But I don’t see anything on the TV. Why aren’t you seeing this:
(Grainy photo of George Bush)
George Bush says he’s going to fix America’s problems.
(Grainy photo of Bush’s inauguration)
But hasn’t he already had four years to solve them? What’s he been doing all this time?
(Photo of Osama bin Laden)
He still hasn’t captured Osama bin Laden, though he promised he would.
(Photo of unemployment lines)
America’s poverty rate has increased every year that George Bush has been President. We’ve lost over a million and a half jobs under his watch.
(Photo of someone setting fire to a pile of fifty dollar bills.)
And he’s done nothing about our national debt. In fact, George Bush has raised our deficit to (insert ungoldly figure) - money that you and your children are going to have to pay with interest.
(Photo of soldiers in Iraq)
Instead, he wasted your tax dollars fighting a war over weapons of mass destruction that weren’t even there.
(Photo of Bush sneering)
He’s wasted your money, put Americans out of work, and Osama bin Laden has made a fool of him.
(Photo of a smiling John Kerry with age spots airbrushed out. Or a clip showing him petting a friendly dog. The lighting is soft and minimizes how scary looking he is.)
John Kerry actually wants to solve problems. John Kerry wants to defeat America’s real enemies and solve the hard problems, not just make himself look good by defeating easy enemies and problems he invented. Vote John Kerry for real leadership.
Manipulative? Absolutely. But why not? It works.
Well, I’d be careful of hinging too much criticism on his failure to capture Osama Bin laden. Call it murphy’s law, call it paranoia, call it “The October Surprise…” but I think the minute the Kerry’s Campaign makes OBL the campaign issue, we’ll suddenly have his head on a stick thanks to Pakistan.
This election is probably going to go down as an entry in the , how not to run a campaign , side of the ledger book.
I am thinking , that his campaign staff either has some sort of ethical thing about tac ads , or that they did not need em , it was supposed to be a lock , just by reading the stuff on the straight dope forums.
Or we have yet to see them, and they are in the que.
Declan
Attack adds are the last thing Kerry needs to do. Damn near every willing to listen already has some major problems with Bush.
What Kerry needs to do to somehow get of above the din of morons srcreaming that Bush is Hitler. He needs to actually get a message about what he is planning on doing different. The entire perception of his campaign is that it’s based on 'Vote for me cause I’m not Bush" Unless he can get a major push out to talk about what his plans are, Bush will win on the ‘Devil-you-know’ effect.
See what happens when you nominate a man of character and integrity?
Err…who the hell are you referring to exactly? Certainly not either of these two lying sacks of shit…
Errr…Which ones are you referring to? 
He also has to get past these people who don’t care what actually happens but what they are told. Bush is winning in the polls, and will more than likely in November, unless Kerry and the dems can some how lie their asses off. Yes, they need to lie like hell. I have no idea what they would lie about, but it seems to be a good tatic for Bushco. We have a defecit? Easily fixed if we do exactly what I will do. Unemployment? The most EASIEST thing EVER, which I will do if elected in November. The War in Iraq? Ah, simple! Just give me time and it will all go away!
Sure, it doesn’t mention how he is to do it. But neither does Bush, and he is winning by using the same tactics. Then again, the Republicans will call him out on it, which would also hurt more than help. Plus, it would be hard to tell if he was lying or not.
Also… Why the hell are Democrats so unorganized anyways?! They had FOUR years to get their stuff together!
BINGO!
I’ve been saying this exact same thing on these boards for months. The average American has some things he doesn’t like about Bush, and would be willing to vote for someone else (a dynamic Deemocrat-where have you gone JFK?), but then he looks at the most vocal segment of the Democratic party who are all screaming that Bush is Hitler, Satan, and Stalin all rolled into one(you know, the average SDMB poster :D), and concludes “those folks are nuts”, and thus lacking a viable alternative, shrugs, holds his nose and votes for Bush. How fucking stupid do the Democrats have to be not to see that? I swear to God, Bush is going to win by a substantial margin, and all the Democrats will be sitting around with their limp dicks in their hands saying over and over to each other “how did this happen, I don’t know anyone who voted for Bush” YET AGAIN.
I agree. And if you’re one of those people on the fence, Kerry’s inability to run a campaign sure doesn’t generate confidence that he’d be able to run the country.
Part of it is I think the spending limits on the campaigns post-convention. Each campaign is now limited to $75 million but Kerry’s having to stretch that money over a longer time frame. That’s why he floated that balloon a while back about not officially accepting the nomination until Bush did, so he could keep raising and spending money.
Mercifully I’ve missed almost all of the competing TV ads since I don’t watch a lot of really popular TV.
As for why Bush got such a big bump off the convention, it’s, frankly, because vast segments of the American people are stupid, gullible and have short memories.
Ding ding ding, we have a winner!
I don’t want to hear about Vietnam. I don’t want to hear about vague promises, and I don’t think I’m alone. When Kerry was in Washington talking to an audience mainly comprised of laid-off Boeing employees he said: “I will bring you jobs, I will bring you health care!” How?
Give us a concrete, meaningful action plan to restore jobs in the manufacturing sector, jobs that companies have found can be done faster and cheaper elsewhere. (Hasn’t happened, isn’t happening.) Give us a concrete, meaningful action plan to prevent the outrsourcing of jobs to overseas centers. What’s the magic going to be, tax penalties? Plans, not platitudes.
Give us a concrete, meaningful action plan to get affordable healthcare to the masses. Be honest if your plan is single-payer (government-controlled) medical care, so that we can judge the plan accordingly and vote accordingly. (Knowing that such a plan is meaningless, because it would never get past Congress because it’s not what the majority of Americans really want.) A plan, not an overbroad promise.
Tell us exactly what you’re going to do with Iran and North Korea – more than just “we’ll use diplomatic skills rather than threats of military action.” Give me an overview of the diplomatic tack that will be used to contain rogue nations. A precis, not fingerpointing.
Tell us exactly how you plan to deal with terrorists, and make sure that al-Qaeda doesn’t get an opportunity to take over one of our public schools, killing our kids. Tell us if you believe that terrorism is a law enforcement issue, so that we can judge such a belief accordingly and vote accordingly. Don’t be vague or condescending, be reassuring.
Tell us exactly how you plan to deal with Iraq (and Afghanistan). Be honest if your intent is to cut and run so that we can judge that plan accordingly and vote accordingly. Yes, we know there were no WMDs, that’s the past. Tell us about the future.
Tell us what you’re going to do about education, probably the single largest factor (that the government can really mess with, at least) in eliminating the problem of the “two Americas” that you’ve rhetoricalized in your campaign. You claim that “No Child Left Behind” is a failure that needs to be done away with (even though you voted for it) so what do you propose in its place? Do you support tougher standards for teachers (ouch, there goes the NEA union vote) or high stakes testing as a promotional measure for students? What do you stand for? Give us a concrete answer, not more lofty fluff that isn’t closing the acheivement gap between minorities and white students, and isn’t going to help any of the “have nots” become “haves.”
Why does Kerry need to be specific while Bush does not? Because people know what’s happening right now, and for those of us who are employed in the capacity we wish to be, who are insured, who are still seeing success in our investments (relative to overall trends) and who do feel reassured by the lack of further terrorist activity in the U.S. are going to be hard-pressed to say “Yes, we need change!” when there’s no telling exactly what we’d be changing to.
We know what we’ve got. Tell us, meaningfully, what we’ll get. And don’t lie. If you lie, you’ll pay. (Remember “Read my lips…”) Why encourage politics as usual? Give us truth and give us details. That’s not something that we should even have to ask for!
The problem with these polls is that they are skewed by huge increases in states that Bush will win anyway. If Bush moves from 53% of the vote in North Dakota to 66% percent, it won’t make any difference in the electoral vote count; Bush still only wins 3 votes. The latest analysis of the polls (Sept. 2) bear this out:
What is significant is the polls in the swing states, where the race is still too close to call:
So I am not worried any more today than I was before the convention. It is going to be a close race, but Kerry will prevail for one reason. There are more compelling reasons for voters who chose Bush in 2000 to switch to Kerry this time, than voters who did not vote for Bush that might choose him in this election.
It is amusing to see Republican hearts begin to flutter when they get tossed the meager bone they have hungered after for so long. To bad those little hearts will be crushed beneath the cold, hard boot of reality in November.
I ain’t skeered.
I’m not sure that is a valid analysis. I know a hell of a lot of people who got the everfucking shit scared out of them on 9/11. And Bush has the perception of the 'take no shit, gather the posse" president, Which Kerry doesn’t and it is feasible (I hav’t seen a poll on the subject) that may singlehandedly move votes rightward. Comparisons to the 2000 election and who might switch are tenuous at best. The ‘world’ has changed more for many people between the last election and this, then it did in the previous 20 years.