As a former Republican I have to agree with Dio2112 in that were I a swing voter sitting on the fence, Zell’s accusations of Kerry wanting to cut so many military programs would have been giving me second thoughts. Especially as the Republican platform seems to be based around a very offensive orientated foreign policy, determined to strike “them” over there before they reach our soil. Without strong refutation, repetition of distortion leads many to believe these are the facts. I’d be concerned about these “facts”.
In addition to Shayna’s retort, the great irony was that the next speaker after Miller, Dick Cheney, as Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush authored proposals for the largest military cuts in the last 20 years. It included all of the cuts that Kerry was accused of and more. For instance Cheney proposed disbanding part of the Army’s Fourth Infantry Division, the unit that captured Saddam Hussein.
The Pubs love to bring up many of the same military cuts in a bill that Kerry proposed and they make a big deal of the fact that he couldn’t get more than a few Senators to sign on. In fact, to my understanding, that bill was an alternative to Cheney’s for reducing the spending cuts Cheney proposed. In any case, the cuts were obviously popular at the time.
Yet will Kerry mention this? Not enough to get any press. The Dems haven’t seemed to set this issue into it’s proper perspective. In any case, both Kerry and Cheney were trying to be fiscally responsible in the post-cold war climate. I’d think this problem could have been neutralized months ago. They could have made it a made it a three week campaign issue and it would likely have faded away.
While I think it’s honorable for Kerry to try and run a campaign without much mudslinging, I believe that a challenger has no choice but to forcefully tear into an incumbent’s record. How else do they make the case that they can do better? I also believe many conservative swing voters would respect a strong attack by Kerry in his own defense. He has much factual stuff that he could cite and could encourage the doubtful to follow up on, but will he? We’ll know if he argues against Bush’s record effectively only if the press picks up on it; then he’ll likely add a couple percentage points in the polls.
On the brighter side: an incumbent does not need to go out of their way to discredit their opponent if they have a good record to run on. One of the benefits of being an office holder is that one can simply stand on one’s record and act as if they’re above the fray. George Bush is not that candidate. When an incumbent engages on a smear campaign, it indicates real deficits in their record of service. And who can deny that Bush et al are engaging in some serious mudslinging? I think that for all their bluster, this reveals they know they are on thin ice.
Also, Kerry has a history of breaking out in the home stretch of his campaigns, I hope that a well measured attack on his opponent’s time in office will be part of his strategy for doing so in this race. Factoring this in with his attempts at inclusiveness in his run for the presidency may ultimately make him seem to the undecided as if he’s already assumed the role of a successful commander-in-chief
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