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| 7/14 |
| 2004/8/30 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:33234 Activity:nil |
8/30 Recent Post, Time, LA Times, and Gallup polls all show Kerry falling
significantly on major issues and his former overall lead over Bush
disappearing. Whether true or not, and politically motivated or not,
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's TV commercials and book caused this
move. How can Kerry fight terror, excel as a commander in chief, be
trustworthy, or run the economy when more than five veterans call him
a liar on TV -- while the most Kerry can personally do is to not accuse
the veterans of being liars, but only ask President Bush to "condemn"
them and claim they are politically motivated? "Duh." The lead was
Kerry's to lose. He was cautious -- he let the newspapers research the
facts and present the differing cases. A lot of people don't have time
to read newspapers; they just want to see a man stand up for himself
(a whole bunch of your fellow soldiers just called you a liar regarding
events you should know everything about!) while getting the feeling he
is telling the truth at the same time. -liberal
\_ So what you're saying is Kerry isn't fit to command because he's
too week and wishy washy. I agree with you. --conservative
\_ What I'm saying is what happened, and the effect. My own opinion
is that these vets are all liars (I read the newspapers, source
material, and the freeper links), but Kerry never came out
strongly to accuse the vets of being liars. -op
\_ post hoc ergo propter hoc
\_ all 160 of them
\_ All 160 oppose Kerry becoming President. I am talking
about the TV commercials. -op
\_ Eye witness Rear Adm. Schachte is a liar? Maybe Kerry
hasn't called them liars because he knows they are
right.
\_ His version contradicts with Kerry's? Of course he's a
liar.
\_ I don't believe Schachte is a Swift Boat Vet for Truth.
Also, my contention is that Kerry's version and Schachte's
versions of the story are the same. Kerry probably
suffered a self-inflicted wound from shooting a grenade
too closely, and Schachte was on the boat and officially
in charge of the operation. -op
\_ Then why the PH?
\_ Because Kerry, as a boy in a politically powerful
family asked for one and got it. He has long been
known for pulling stunts like skipping ahead in
line and other nastiness with the line, "Do you know
who I am?!"
\_ You need to back this up. I say again, it was
standard operating procedure to get a PH in this
case. It qualified, anyone else in that situation
who asked would qualify, and that's it. -op
\_ With no enemy fire, NO. Kerry was denied the
first request, but applied again after
Schachte left.
\_ It was SOP to get a PH in this case.
Hibbard was even criticized by a superior for
not following SOP in this case. -op
\_ What reason do all these vets have to come out now? What
benefit is ther for them to all tell lies about Kerry? Is
there some secret payoff? Are they all RNC operatives? We
know that's not true. Now take the other side. What reason
does Kerry have to lie? His candidacy is at risk. He has
more to gain than they do.
\_ These vets are settling a vendetta for Kerry having
screwed them (their perception) in his 1971 testimony. -op
\_ They waited 33 years? Ignored his multiple Senate runs
and only came out now? All of them have a personal
and unfair vendetta for the man? Maybe when 160 people
who served with you hate you that much there's a reason
for it.
\_ Who said they waited 33 years? They've *always* been
against Kerry, and some have made pro-Kerry
statements last year and flipped all of a sudden.
Many in the public didn't want anything to do with
the vets 30 years ago. Today, in the currently
polarized election environment, they can be
anti-Kerry and be treated like patriots.
"... hate you that much there's a reason for it."
Reason: settling a vendetta for Kerry having screwed
them (their perception) in his 1971 testimony. -op
\_ All 160 of them are out to get him for his
testimony? 33 years ago? Wow, talk about a
culture of victimization. We're so far off on
different planes here I think I'll just let this
one go. No matter what is said I think you'll
find a way to rationalise it so that kerry=good,
all 160 vets=evil.
\_ That is not how I read the polling results at all.
http://www.emergingdemocraticmajority.com/donkeyrising
It helped Bush solidify his base, but that is about it.
\_ What's your favorite Kool-aid flavor?
\_ I ONLY READ FREEREPUBLIC AND BELIEVE THINGS I HEAR ON
FOX NEWS CITIZEN!!!
\_ This URL is pretty crazy. -op
\_ The URL is crazy or the analysis? If you think the latter,
I seriously don't think you are a liberal, just a pathetic
troll pretending to be one.
\_ What serious web site is going to have a picture of a
donkey kicking a map of red/blue states into all blue
states, and have a URL with "donkeyrising"?
Crazy is as crazy does. -op
\_ These guys are pretty influential in the Democratic
Party. Their books is huge. The specific entry
dealing with your concerns is:
http://csua.org/u/8u1
\_ This URL ignores the Time and Post polls, which
came out after and say the same thing as the LA
Times poll. This argument has lost what strength
it had. -op |
| 7/14 |
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| csua.org/u/8u1 -> www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/000619.php New Annenberg Center Study Shows 46% Believe Bush Behind Attack Ads, 37% Do Not August 28, 2004 What that "Awful" LA Times Poll Really Means The Los Angeles Times poll released Thursday August 26th has created substantial consternation among democrats. Not only the mainstream media, but many pro-democratic writers and commentators have accepted the polls' apparent message that the sleazy attacks on Kerry's wartime record have been successful and have allowed Bush to overtake Kerry in the presidential race. The bad news is that this perception has been widely accepted. LA Times poll found Bush's support among registered voters rising from 46% in July to 49% on August 22-24th (and Kerry's support dropping from 48% to 46% in the same period), three other polls by major polling organizations found entirely different patterns. Fox/Opinion Dynamics poll found Kerry 46%, Bush 43% on Aug 24-26. Kerry was up 2% from July 20-22 and Bush down 1% during that period. In short, the four major polls conducted since August 20th do not reveal any consistent or substantial pro-Bush swing such as would be expected from a successful attack on John Kerry's war record and character during the week and a half before. Instead, the only generalization that can be made from looking at a broader group of over 20 polls of registered and likely voters since the beginning of August is of a slight and gradual shrinkage of about 3 or 4% in Kerry's lead. If August had been a slow news month, this trend would almost certainly have been ascribed to an inevitable "coming back down to earth" following the run of positive news coverage Kerry had enjoyed for several months during the spring (the remarkable fundraising success, the popular choice of Edwards, the united, energized Democratic convention). Instead, because the attacks on Kerrys medals and military service were intensely dramatic and widely covered, many commentators simply assumed that any changes in the opinion polls had to be due to their influence. But the data in the LA Times and the other recent polls is actually more consistent with a different interpretation -- that a certain decline in Kerry's support, particularly among veterans, was inevitable as voters began to pay more attention to the campaign. On the other hand, the data show that the swift-boat surrogates attack on Kerry's medals and service has been -- as it richly deserved to be -- an almost unmitigated fiasco. Since the beginning of Kerry's campaign it has been clear that there were a substantial number of veterans, and Vietnam veterans in particular, whose support he would never be able to attract because of his participation in the movement against the Vietnam War. While men like John McCain and Max Cleland have been able to "put the scars of Vietnam behind them", and relate to opponents of the war without rancor or bitterness, there are still many veterans, their families and friends who cannot. At the emotional core of this group are those who lost a father, husband or other close relative or friend in the Vietnam War and for whom "making peace" with opponents of the war would feel like a betrayal of their loved one - an admission that he and his sacrifice had been forgotten. As a result, there was never any realistic possibility that Kerry would hold onto the support of many of these voters, even after his quite effective performance at the Democratic convention. All the Bush campaign needed to do was to make sure that these voters were made aware of Kerry's significant role in the anti-war movement of the early 1970's. In July, 32% agreed that "By protesting the war in Vietnam, John Kerry demonstrated a judgment and belief that is inappropriate in a president". Similarly, 26% of the sample (and 31% of the men) agreed that Kerry's anti-war protests made them less likely to vote for him. The voters among whom the LA Times survey found Kerry loosing ground in August were married, less educated, self-described conservatives, owning a gun and living in a rural area -- a demographic profile that also describes the cultural environment of many US veterans. Had the Bush campaign been satisfied with simply harvesting these sympathetic voters, they probably could have done so with even a relatively honest and low-key series of commercials. Instead, however, they hoped that, with the help of their surrogates, they could achieve an even more ambitious goal - to impugn Kerry's valor, honesty and character through attacks on his wartime record of bravery and heroism. The essence of this strategy was not only to directly damage Kerry's image and reputation, but to trap him into choosing between "taking the high road" and not responding to the attacks (which could then be spun to make him look weak and indecisive) or to provoke him into an ill-tempered, aggressive response (for which he could then be criticized as negative, partisan, bitter and shrill). In the LA Times survey, only 18% of the voters had been convinced that "Kerry misrepresented his war record and does not deserve his war medals" while 58% said Kerry "fought honorably and does deserve" them. Independent voters sided with Kerry 5 to 1 Even men and self-described conservatives - groups that are normally quite pro-Bush - strongly supported Kerry, by 59 to 19 for men and 42 to 29 for conservatives. Other polls, such as the Fox/Opinion Dynamics and Annenberg Center for Public Policy survey found similar attitudes. In the Fox poll, even most veterans held, by 50% to 21% that Kerry deserved his purple hearts. Moreover, Americans did not buy Bush's transparent attempts to pretend his campaign was not involved with the smear. The Gallup poll showed that more Americans think Bush is responsible for the commercials (50%) then do not (44%) and 56% think he should specifically denounce them while only 32% think he should not. It was this failure to convince the American people of the charges against Kerry that set the stage for the growing backlash against the Bush campaign - the investigative reports and editorial statements in newspapers across the country, the resignations of two Bush officials when their links to the smear campaign were exposed, and then Bush's disingenuous and finally humiliating series of statements and clarifications. From the Bush campaign's point of view, the magnitude of the swift-boat fiasco becomes clear when it is recognized that a major goal of the August campaign was to put John Kerry on the defensive - to have him stumbling over his words, being pilloried in the press and firing his advisors. Instead (although the issue will now be muted by the theatrics of the Republican convention) it was Bush who was forced onto the defensive by the end of last week while Kerry weathered the attacks with an extraordinarily small decline in the level of his popular support. Public Opinion Watch Dialog Among Dems A meeting ground for centrists and populists within the Democratic Party. Key articles and commentary and a set of tools for discussion and collaboration. |