Friday, October 15, 2004
I Know I Am, But What Are You?
The Bush campaign engaged in a strategy of labeling Kerry a flip flopper, someone who was inconsistent in nearly every political decision he has taken over the course of his political career. And for awhile, it worked when Kerry was dragged down by television ads about voting for the $87 billion before voting against it. However, the narrative has seemed to run its course, and thus the President and his campaign has recently shifted tactics. Now, not surprisingly, they are labeling him as consistent in all of his positions that he has taken over the lifetime of his political career.
Beginning in the second debate, and certainly in the third, the President has leveled the "liberal" label on Senator Kerry. There has been the "most liberal" senator in the US Senate from the "National Journal"," and then his zinger in the third debate that Kerry was the "conservative senator" from Massachussetts.
This is a strategy that dates back to his father's campaign in 1988, in which the Bush-Quayle campaign consistently hammered Governor Dukakis with the liberal label, after which it had become such a perjorative that commentators took to calling it the "L" word.
So here is President Bush yesterday at a rally:
He's against these Social Security reforms. He's against just about every reform that gives more authority and more control to the individual. On issue after issue, from Medicare without choices to schools with less accountability to higher taxes, he takes the side of more centralized control and more bureaucracies. And there's a word for that attitude. It's called liberalism.
The audience, of course, responds with a unified "Boo!" Then Bush says:
He dismisses that as a label. But he must have seen it differently when he said to a newspaper, I am a liberal and proud of it.
And then, to show that he was in the land of facts, the President adds:
Nonpartisan National Journal magazine did a study and named him the most liberal member of the United States Senate. That takes a lot of hard work.
But as I discussed in July, the "National Journal" article has Kerry at the top only in 2003, when he was gearing up for a run for the Democratic nomination. In other years, Kerry was in the middle of the pack.
It shows the President's campaign is in trouble that a month before the election, they have tried to switch narratives. In fact, so schizophrenic is the RNC that they are using the liberal and flip flopper label all in one sentence! In an answer to the question, who is John Kerry, they answer:
A Massachusetts liberal out of touch with America. A flip flopper who wants to raise taxes, is weak on national security, weak on intelligence and weak on homeland security.
But where it worked in 1988, it should not work this time. The Bush team has worked so hard to describe Kerry as inconsistent that a switch to describe him as consistent is a contradiction in message. And a contradiction in message works to the disadvantage of those levelling the charge, not the target.
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Beginning in the second debate, and certainly in the third, the President has leveled the "liberal" label on Senator Kerry. There has been the "most liberal" senator in the US Senate from the "National Journal"," and then his zinger in the third debate that Kerry was the "conservative senator" from Massachussetts.
This is a strategy that dates back to his father's campaign in 1988, in which the Bush-Quayle campaign consistently hammered Governor Dukakis with the liberal label, after which it had become such a perjorative that commentators took to calling it the "L" word.
So here is President Bush yesterday at a rally:
He's against these Social Security reforms. He's against just about every reform that gives more authority and more control to the individual. On issue after issue, from Medicare without choices to schools with less accountability to higher taxes, he takes the side of more centralized control and more bureaucracies. And there's a word for that attitude. It's called liberalism.
The audience, of course, responds with a unified "Boo!" Then Bush says:
He dismisses that as a label. But he must have seen it differently when he said to a newspaper, I am a liberal and proud of it.
And then, to show that he was in the land of facts, the President adds:
Nonpartisan National Journal magazine did a study and named him the most liberal member of the United States Senate. That takes a lot of hard work.
But as I discussed in July, the "National Journal" article has Kerry at the top only in 2003, when he was gearing up for a run for the Democratic nomination. In other years, Kerry was in the middle of the pack.
It shows the President's campaign is in trouble that a month before the election, they have tried to switch narratives. In fact, so schizophrenic is the RNC that they are using the liberal and flip flopper label all in one sentence! In an answer to the question, who is John Kerry, they answer:
A Massachusetts liberal out of touch with America. A flip flopper who wants to raise taxes, is weak on national security, weak on intelligence and weak on homeland security.
But where it worked in 1988, it should not work this time. The Bush team has worked so hard to describe Kerry as inconsistent that a switch to describe him as consistent is a contradiction in message. And a contradiction in message works to the disadvantage of those levelling the charge, not the target.
