Vision Circle

Kerry v. Bush

Today in Public Opinion I talked about the meme of electabillity that dammed and jammed Dean, and catapulted Kerry into the driver's seat. I also had my students watch an old Bill Moyers video about the evils of polling. It was filmed in 1989, and its age showed.

Anyone remember BehaviorScan?

The low light of the story was Willie Horton...the ad that single handedly relegated Dukakis to a Trivial Pursuit question. Non-blacks didn't recognize how racist the ad campaign was until much later...the best Moyers could do was utter something about pandering to our fears.

But a couple of swatches make me think we don't have to worry about that if Kerry wins the primary.

"Their tired old G.O.P. attack dog just won't hunt," Mr. Wade said, adding that Republicans would be running against "a Democrat who fought for his country in war, put criminals behind bars as a prosecutor, stood up for balanced budgets in the Senate," and "kept faith with America's veterans."

Another Kerry adviser was more blunt. "This is not the Dukakis campaign," the adviser said. "We're not going to take it. And if they're going to come at us with stuff, whatever that stuff may be, if it goes to a place where the '88 campaign did, then everything is on the table. Everything."

And:

Bush-Cheney campaign chairman Marc Racicot called on the Democratic front-runner, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) to repudiate the attack on the president. But Lindlaw writes that Kerry's campaign dismissed that contention.

"'It is up to President Bush whether he wants to answer these questions that continue to persist about the year missing from his National Guard service,' said spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. "John Kerry will stand up to the slanderous tactics of the Bush attack machine, and if the president wants a debate on patriotism and national security, we welcome that debate.'"

I'm really starting to warm up to the idea. This is going to be GOOD.