By special request of TTLB’s “house liberal” commenter, my old friend Lisa…
August 8: I’m going to go on record and predict that the Swift Boat Veterans kerfuffle won’t just be a major negative for Kerry: it will be a campaign-killer…
Unless Kerry’s campaign manages to completely discredit the Swifties — which seems increasingly unlikely — the campaign is over; Kerry is done. And after Election Day has passed, I expect that anyone looking backwards will wonder why in the world the Democrats ever thought making Kerry’s Vietnam service a centerpiece was a good idea in the first place.
Mary Beth Cahill, December 15: The campaign manager for Sen. John Kerry (news – web sites)’s failed presidential bid said Wednesday she regrets underestimating the impact of an attack advertisement that questioned Kerry’s Vietnam War record.
Mary Beth Cahill, who spoke at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government with Ken Mehlman, President Bush (news – web sites)’s campaign manager, said the Massachusetts senator’s campaign initially thought there would be “no reach” to the ad from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth…
“In hindsight, maybe we should have put Senator Kerry out earlier, perhaps we could have cut it off earlier.”
Mehlman said that it was natural that the ad had the reach and impact it did, because Kerry decided to make his Vietnam record a central part of his campaign.
“Because Senator Kerry was so focused on that part of his biography, it came out as an issue,” he said.
Ms. Cahill, Mr. Kerry, and yes, even Ms. Clinton are welcome to call upon my services when next they find themselves in need of political advice…