To be honest I’m kind of surprised this point isn’t being made more, and that the discussion has veered the way it has, into a completely pointless, irrelevant argument over how much Kerry bragged about his service.
In fact, the term “Swiftboating” is often used, and really should refer specifically, to the act of using misinformation to negate an opponent’s strength by creating discussion that it is weakness. The entire point of the Swiftboat campaign was to attempt to prevent Kerry from having what logically should have been an enormous character advantage; he served in war with unusual valor while his opponent dodged the draft.
This, not every phony attack in a campaign is a “Swiftboating.” The birther crap about Barack Obama is not a swiftboating, because it’s just a lie, not one specifically designed to attack his strengths; nor was the connection between him and that Ayers guy a swiftboat move, since that’s again not an attack on something Obama had that would otherwise have been advantageous.
Characterizing the Swiftboat attack as a reaction to Kerry bragging about his service is just nuts, a total misremembering of the facts. The Swiftboat campaign was fired up long before the “Reporting for duty” moment, which itself was unquestionably planned in an effort to strike back at the Swiftboat campaign. It was quite specifically design to create discussion about Kerry’s strength being a weakness. It doesn’t matter if it was true, or if it changed many people’s minds; it confused a few people and swung their votes. Even if it just confused one out of 300 people, that’s the equivalent of millions and millions and millions of dollars’ worth of ad buys.
Framing the debate is the first part of winning the debate, and Swiftboating is just one specific way you can frame a debate.
There is a definite distinction between acknowledging one’s status as a veteran and “bragging”. Keeping in mind that a public assertion of that status was already manifest, him being the spokesman for the Viet Nam Veterans Against the War, and all.
And if that moment was “unquestionably planned in an effort to strike back at the Swiftboat campaign”, the only pity is that it wasn’t more effective, they deserve all the *striking *they might get, perhaps even a smiting, as from On High. And the horseshit upon in which they rode.
Thank you, RickJay for your intelligent and eloquent remarks. Bravo!
Many posters on this otherwise-often intelligent Board are diverted (to a ‘Blame the Victim’ ploy!); this itself demonstrates the power of the Rovian tactic.
(I’m surprised no one else has admitted that the eponymous incident of Swiftboarding probably did swing the 2004 election.)
So, to be clear. The evidence that ABC is biased is that Mark Halperin demanded that both presidential candidates be given the same standard, and that nobody cut one of them a break in order to seem nonpartisan. And the evidence that Halperin’s statement is biased is because ABC is biased. Yes! Certainly, your mastery of logical syllogisms is overwhelming! And because I don’t agree that this is convincing, I am biased. Wow, teach me more master!
Look, it’s really simple. If you want to claim that a network props up a double standard, you can’t do that by pointing to the network head demanding an end to double standards in attempts to look nonpartisan. You just can’t. That’s not how this works.
With due respect, you totally, completely missed the point. The precise timing of what happened when (though earlier in the thread it WAS implied this all started with the “reporting for duty” line, so that idea has to be addressed) is not terribly relevant, nor is it relevant that Kerry raised the issue of his service. His service was raised by his announcing his candidacy. A President’s resume is always an issue.
The issue I’m trying to point out here is what Swiftboating is. People arguing that the issue was opened by Kerry either do not remember the 2004 campaign or have an agenda, or don’t understand what the hell was going on at all.
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(I’m surprised no one else has admitted that the eponymous incident of Swiftboarding probably did swing the 2004 election.)
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Whether that is true or not is a matter of debate. It certainly is possible, but you can’t just replay the election and prove it.
The premise that the Swiftboating campaign swung the election essentially hinges on the theory that the campaign changed the minds of at least 1% of all voters in the State of Ohio; Bush won the state by about 2 points, but if you swing 1% of the electorate the other way, Kerry wins the state and the election. 1% is a lot of people; it doesn’t sound like much, but for a single issue to actually change a person’s mind on who to vote for in 1 out of 100 voters is really quite a big swing. It really is quite possible, and I’m not saying you aren’t right, but I’m not totally certain.
I completely get - and got - that your broader point was that Swiftboating is about trying to distort the facts to use a candidate’s ostensible strength against him. That was clear from your post. That’s not the problem, and I did not object to that point.
The problem is your attempt to prove this point. Your specific assertion about the SBVFT was that “Characterizing the Swiftboat attack as a reaction to Kerry bragging about his service is just nuts, a total misremembering of the facts.”. You attempted to prove this assertion by observing that “The Swiftboat campaign was fired up long before the “Reporting for duty” moment”.
My point here was that “Kerry bragging about his service” began long before the “Reporting for Duty” moment. Therefore, the fact that “The Swiftboat campaign was fired up long before the “Reporting for duty” moment” does not prove your assertion that “Characterizing the Swiftboat attack as a reaction to Kerry bragging about his service is just nuts, a total misremembering of the facts.”
That’s fine as an opinion, but it’s not based on anything other than your assertion.
By contrast, the alternative is somewhat supported by actual evidence posted earlier in this thread.
It should also be noted that the people most likely to believe and focus on SBVFT allegations were those who were going to vote for Bush anyway. The question is whether the SBVFT changed the votes of about 10% of moderate swing voters (and that’s net of those who might have been turned off by the attacks and swung the other way).
F-P makes some very good points. Kerry did boast of his record long before the convention and to a large degree the Swift Boat Liars For Bush were just preaching to the choir that had no intention of voting for Kerry anyway.
But the Rovian strategy of attacking your opponent’s strength is quite valid. Obama seemed to have learned the lesson quite well, as witnessed by the 2012 campaign against Romney’s experience in Bain Capital. Romney had hoped to campaign on his strengths as a business owner, Obama’s campaign quite deftly showed the impact of his business decisions on the lives of people. The difference between this and the Swiftboaters lies in the degree of truth to the accusations.
I realize there’s a lot of IMHO here, but my honest, firm belief is that Kerry’s presentation of his service was essentially proportional to every Presidential candidate’s presentation of their service. I can’t think of how the way Kerry presented his resume was in any way unusual in terms of the weight and emphasis given to his military service. Nothing presented so far to the contrary has been remotely convincing.
Granted, the problem is that there are few immediately relevant examples of a President who was a decorated combat veteran (as opposed to just serving but not with combat decorations, like Gore, Carter, etc) so we don’t have a huge recent data set but it seems to me that in every case of a President actually fighting in a war, his service was a HUGE character bonus. Kerry was a the first example of the other party going on a weird Ministry of Truth offensive about it. George H.W. Bush was well know to be a war veteran, granted in a war that was further before his candidacy and he was, after all, the incumbent VP and so his resume was well known. But Bob Dole’s service came up a lot and nobody ripped him for it. Theodore Roosevelt, San Juan Hill, we all know the story. John F. Kennedy certainly played up his service.
(Comparisons to people like Grant and Eisenhower who actually commanded whole armies are obviously something else entirely and not particularly relevant. The ability to win a war on a continental scale is pretty far from being brave in a battle or two.)
Exactly, plus one has to account for the effect on turnout.
Could it have affected the election result? Quite possibly. It’d be interesting to dig up 2004 polls concerning this specific issue.
Bush Senior. Served in WWII, with multiple decorations. I wasn’t in the US at the time of the elections - was his service record a big part of his campaign?
Not sure if being a war veteran is a big help. You don’t get much braver than Bob Dole and his war wounds were quite significant, but in the end it made little difference in the campaign.
He might have exagerated/distorted his accomplishments more than most. What were people going to rip Bob Dole about that they refrained from? (Also, FWIW, Bob Dole was partially paralyzed for life, and that’s what drew attention, not some decorations.)
[People tried to suggest that McCain had become mentally unstable as a result of his years of torture in Vietnam. This was not senior level Democrats, as far as I can recall, but it should also be noted that the SVBFT was not connected to the Bush campaign either, and the latter specifically disclaimed having any issues with Kerry’s service record.]
But most importantly, Kerry was probably the first example of an anti-war candidate simultaneously trying to play up his military credentials. That kind of thing is always going to attract more scrutiny.
That’s probably part of it, especially since first repudiating your decorations by throwing them away, and then claiming them back again when you want to run for President, resonated with the idea of Kerry as a flip-flopper and not merely with the Swift Boat allegations.
Back then it was a true fact that only unpatriotic cowards criticized the Iraq war, so the Dems had to scramble to find a square jawed military man with some medals. The logic of the entire debate would make the Mad Hatter proud. If Kerry’s medals were deserved because he was good at chasing down dirty VC then the Iraq war is wrong. But if he’s exaggerating butt shrapnel and he threw his fake medals over a real fence then the Iraq war is just and proper.
Did it matter though? 2004 was when gay marriage was threatening to destroy the moral fabric of the nation.
Yeah, he could have played it safe, smart thing to do if you are heavily invested in a political future. He could even have opposed the war, but quietly, with reservations and caveats. Especially in Massachusetts. It would have sold, he could simultaneously appeal to the peaceniks with his opposition while mollifying the Trog right with his participation.
He didn’t have to put himself up front like that, somebody else could have been the public face of the VVAW. He told us what we didn’t want to hear, but needed to know. That’s what having the courage to do your duty looks like.
Kerry’s opposition to the war was not a smart political calculus. As elucidator correctly points out, Kerry could have taken a much more nuanced, safe approach that would have been much less likely to damage his political aspirations. I agree: it was an act of courage to take the position he did in spite of the potential political consequences.
And of course it was an act of courage in the first place to wear his country’s uniform into a place where unfriendly people would shoot at him for doing so.
No one can credibly assault Kerry’s courage on these matters.