Interesting analysis of the comparison of Romney to Kerry

[karynnj]

11. I would imagine that the attack most likely to have been done and answered

was the flip flop one. Dean did use it having people take "flip Flop" beach shoes and giant posters of the shoes and waffles to campaign events, but that was when the media was ignoring Kerry. I agree that Kerry went so quickly from not mentioned other than when questioning when he would drop out to Iowa winner to the de facto nominee, that he really was not publicly hit with a huge barrage of questioning. (The Iowa caucus was January 9th, and he really was the inevitable nominee unless he completely derailed by the first multi-state day, on February 3rd.) He actually got LESS scrutiny than Romney already has - or maybe it just seems that way, as there was less to find.

In addition, his opponents had mostly self destructed at or before the Iowa caucus. Clark had imploded by a week or so before Iowa, after he briefly was leading the polls in NH. Gephardt quit after coming in 5th in Iowa. Edwards attacked Kerry from the right in debates, where Edwards claimed Kerry's healthcare and environmental plans were too expensive, but Kerry easily batted those attacks away. Dean's campaign was a disaster - he spent a fortune on Iowa and NH and then had little money - leading him to gamble on skipping the first multi-state contests, which were in DE, NM, AZ, ND, MO and SC - to concentrate on later contests more winnable by a New Englander.

In January and February, Dean did attack Kerry, but he did it using the attacks that I later realized were pure Trippi, when he had Edwards making the same claims. He did attack Kerry on lobbyists and "being corporate", and it is possible that the unprecedented Kerry response of making public every meeting he had with lobbyists for 15 years and stating he could defend all of them may have been why this did not resurface in the general election.

Dean also attacked on Iraq - and here I think the way that Dean did it was harmful. He conflated October 2002 with March 2003 and ignored that he had praised the Biden/Lugar resolution and had spoken of what he would want in a resolution - which would have actually been worse than the awful IWR. This actually may have helped Bush - as it made it easier for B/C to repeat the claim that Kerry was for the war.

In that time frame, to my memory, the Dean people had dropped the flip flop claim. Had Dean (or someone else) been stronger and made that claim prominent enough that Kerry would have addressed it, that could have helped enormously in defusing it - and had that been an issue, Kerry likely would have NOT used the unfortunate short hand, because he would have been sensitive to the issue. Can you imagine a Kerry speech where he takes major policy area after major policy area and spoke of what informed his goals and positions over his career? Foreign policy, the environment, fiscal responsibility (from Gramm/Rudman to demanding that we not continue to give tax cuts as we increase funding for the wars), the Catholic social justice believe system that underlies his positions on social welfare issues (remember how his 2006 NH speech that had a 10 item list of such things impressed people in focus groups). It could have served a dual purpose in getting Kerry's real record out there and showing that he really has been pretty consistent in his beliefs and principles.

As to Vietnam, I don't think it would have been brought up in the primaries. No Democrat would have challenged the Navy records. At most, they would argue it was irrelevant. Not to mention, as you suggested, it was likely really the protesting that needed to be raised and addressed. Going Up River did an excellent job of doing that. Not to mention talking honestly about it would have helped because what he actually did was both honorable and amazing. My husband has a WWII vet, Republican uncle, who was very much for the Vietnam War. He shocked us in very early 2004 by telling us he hoped Kerry got the nomination and that he could well vote for him. The reason was he was concerned about the testimony - so he read it in its entirety. His comment was that he was a good man and he saw where he was coming from.

However, it was not in Dean's interest to bring Kerry's protesting up. I am sure that I was not alone in accepting that Kerry was not a hawk largely because of that history. I would be willing to bet that the conservative, unprincipled Edwards likely found that it would hurt him in the primaries to attack Kerry on that. (Remember he could not "remember" in 2004 if his first vote was for McGovern or Nixon - which means it very likely was Nixon)

Had there been a longer period where Kerry was the frontrunner, but not the defacto nominee, I would bet that some media would have brought up Kerry's protesting - and I think he would have been more comfortable speaking of that than of his service, which I don't think he ever has spoken of in much detail at all. If he were able to defuse some of the negative feelings on his speaking out, it would have made people know him a lot better.

( I think the right STILL would have believed the SBVT - if only because they could not accept that a MA liberal was a genuine war hero, an athlete, a pilot, and a hunter (none of which the reason he should have been considered as President) - when they wanted to stereotype him as french speaking and effeminate because of his good manners and elegant appearance. )