Bush Losing the Argument?
I love the scene in My Blue Heaven where Steve Martin’s Todd/Vinnie tells Joan Cusack’s Hannah Stubbs, “‘Oh, really?’ You gotta do better than that; you’re gonna lose the argument.” (Here’s an mp3 file of it, courtesy of WaveCentral.com.)
I think Bush is losing the argument. Since Kerry came out strong on the national security issue at the convention, I’ve been noticing a certain stridency and incoherence in the Bush team’s responses. It’s not any one incident, any one news account of the two sides’ daily campaigning and spinning and counter-spinning, but it just feels to me, in a subtle but real way, that the Bush team is coming up short.
I know the early polls showed only a small Kerry bounce, if any, from the convention. I know the Bush visuals team have been placing him in front of enthusiastic crowds, and he’s been energized and engaged, and has a big media push coming that Kerry, hobbled by post-convention spending limits, can’t match. I know that Bush supporters in the weblog world are finding any number of stories to make them happy about their guy’s chances.
But there’s something there. Maybe it’s that, with the campaign well and truly under way, and non-politically-obsessed people actually paying attention, a new level of scrutiny is being applied to the two campaigns’ daily messages. And people are noticing that while the Kerry team has a consistent, rational-sounding message with supporting arguments, the Bush folks are mostly peddling slogans.
We’ve “turned a corner”? You gotta do better than that; you’re gonna lose the argument.
August 5th, 2004 at 8:45 am
JBC,
It is appearent that you have just joined the ploitical watch. Bush has been very consistent with his views and stands. I would suggest to you and everyone else who were amazed by the remake of Kerry at the convention last week to look further than just teh headlines. Look at Kerry’s and Edwards records. I hail from NC and I can tell you first hand, Edwards re-election efforts here are useless. He can not even win in his own state. Also, just ask his fellow Swit-Boaters what they think of him. If 220 of 229 people who served with him can not stand by his side, then should anyone else? Also, why is he still pulling down a $150,000 paycheck for serving as a senator when he has worked only 1 of 8 days since being re-elected. Could you keep your job if you worked Mondy of this week, then Tuesday of the following week, and so forth? I think not. I think Bush is someone who can be trusted to handle the crisis in Iraq, the war on terror, and guess what, the economy is booming past any/all bench-marks set in the past 20 years. Again, don’t take just my word for it, take the few minutes to investigate for yourselves.
August 5th, 2004 at 8:53 am
Bush is the most credible person to handle the crisis in Iraq that he created? Well that logic certainly works with me, I’m sold. BUSH 04!! woowhoo!
August 5th, 2004 at 9:14 am
Well, I’ve been posting on the Internet about politics since at least 1996, and I got a degree in Political Science from UCLA in 1985, so I guess this is a case where appearances are deceiving, at least as far as my political newbiehood is concerned. I’m not saying that makes me right in what I’m arguing; I’m just saying it makes you demonstrably wrong when you assert that it is “apparent that I have just joined the political watch.”
On your other contentions, to pick just one, you said, “If 220 of 229 people who served with him can not stand by his side, then should anyone else?” It sounds like you’re talking about the group “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” which has been making the rounds of the right-wing media bad-mouthing Kerry lately. Interestingly, there was an article about the group in today’s LA Times; see:
Veterans Attack Kerry on Medals,War Record
[begin quote]
All but one of Kerry’s surviving Swift boat crewmates have campaigned on his behalf and appeared with him at the convention. The holdout is Steve Gardner of Clover, S.C., who is a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and took part in a conference call Wednesday regarding the anti-Kerry ad.
A Kerry spokesman, Michael Meehan, dismissed the allegations and the organization’s members, saying that “a lot of them have a political agenda. They can vote for whoever they want. But we won’t allow them to besmirch the record of Sen. Kerry.”
Meehan noted that two of the men in the ad flew to Boston in 1996 to support Kerry during a nasty Senate campaign in which his heroism had been called into question.
“Here we are two years later, and they’re starring in an ad calling Kerry a liar,” Meehan said. “What has changed in the eight years since to their recollections? It has to be politics.”
[end quote]
So it sounds like your “220 of 229” math is a little off. Could you provide a source for it? I hope it’s not just a quotation from Rush Limbaugh or his ideological brethren, because if it is, then again, you’re gonna have to do better than that if you expect to win this particular argument.
I’m not saying you have to change the way you think. You’re welcome to go on listening to “news” sources that tell you how correct you are, and how foolish all those who disagree with you are, and to cite “facts” that don’t actually stand objective scrutiny. You can loudly assert the superiority of your wisdom without bothering to examine each side’s arguments in detail; it’s your birthright as an American to be silly in that fashion.
But others who don’t share your ideological agenda don’t have to be, and in my view actually won’t be, swayed by arguments as weak as the ones you’ve presented here.
August 5th, 2004 at 9:35 am
Oh, and this just came over the transom. Extensive debunking of Swift Boat Veterans for Something Not Exactly Even Particularly Close to Truth:
http://www.mattgunn.com/#swiftboat50504
August 5th, 2004 at 9:54 am
Kerry’s foreign policy stance equals “the UN will tell me what to do”. That is such a great idea. Maybe Bush will follow Kerry’s lead now, and turn our national soverignty over to a bunch of international elitists.
August 5th, 2004 at 10:10 am
Again, I call ‘bulllshit’. There is no indication whatsoever that Kerry will simply turn our foreign policy decision-making over to the UN. What he has consistently said he will do is to involve other countries in taking over the stabilization of Iraq, and to engage in diplomacy with other nations in those areas where international cooperation is essential to achieving a positive outcome. These goals are eminently sensible and supportable. They are not inconsistent with a willingness to use unilateral action where US interests are at stake, which is something Kerry has loudly and repeatedly pledged he is prepared to do. They _are_ inconsisent with Bush’s foreign policy, but that’s because Bush’s foreign policy is insane.
August 5th, 2004 at 9:09 pm
Dave:
Do you *really* want to debate the President’s work ethic? Do you *really* want to debate whose military service record is more praiseworthy? Didn’t think so. That dog don’t hunt, but it is testimony to the absolute shamelessness of the Republicans that they are trying to make issues out of these topics. When Kerry was entering the Senate for his “undistinguished” 20 years, Bush was still a self-admitted drunk who couldn’t find oil in Texas, and had to be bailed out of one failed business venture after another. Debating public service records? Bring it on, as GWB would say.