After a successful convention, President George W. Bush charged ahead of John Kerry in the race for the presidency, according to Gallup. With other polls also showing Bush sitting atop, both campaigns were in full spin mode. As expected, Republicans credited the convention. The Democrats, however, rebuffed suggestions that the Republicans’ good showing had dented Kerry’s election hopes.
Bristling, Kerry campaign spokesmen also tried to brush aside recent poll findings that advertisements by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were having effects.
“The first three ads were all lies, and I don’t think the next is any better,” said Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill forthrightly. “This kind of stupid polling doesn’t shed any light on the electorate,” she said impolitely.
Democrats say the 254-member Swift Boat Veterans group is just a Republican front roving for the Bush campaign. Bush, however, has gone to great lengths to distance himself from the controversial group, most recently at a rally in the capital city of North Carolina. “I think they’re — the 527s are, I mean — bad for the system, and I’d like to see them all end,” Bush told the crowd haltingly.
“We just want to get our message out,” exclaimed Swift Boat Veterans leader John O’Neill, co-author of the best-selling book about Kerry, Unfit for Command. Political commentators agree that this one book has literally changed the race.
Awaiting comment yesterday from the Democrat, reporters were massed outside the chapel of the Paulist Center in Boston where Kerry was attending services. After the benediction, Kerry told them the Swift Boat Vets shouldn’t question his patriotism. “I served this country as a young man, and now I want to serve this country as Commander-in-Chief,” Kerry said dolefully.
Kerry said the idea that the Swift Boat Vets had taken the wind out of his sails was “disgusting.” He then issued a challenge to reporters to compare his domestic agenda with what Bush espoused.
This week, in order to strike back foursquare against Bush, Kerry sought the help of James Carville, Paul Begala, Stanley Greenberg and even former President Bill Clinton. In a recent phone conversation from his hospital bed, Clinton advised Kerry wholeheartedly to stop talking about Vietnam. Because of the Swift Boat Vets, Kerry’s political positive as a Vietnam War hero was, he acknowledged with a sigh, gone.
“Clinton urged and pleaded with Kerry to stop being a political ‘girlie man,'” Begala said. If Kerry takes the former president’s advice, said Carville, he could really slice into Bush’s lead. “Clinton knows what it takes to get what you want,” said Greenberg, in turn.
“If you tallied up all the electoral votes in the states where Kerry is leading, he already has over 270,” Greenberg added.
Meanwhile, the president’s campaign watched appreciatively as the Bush’s poll numbers continued to rise. Bush campaign spokesman Karen Hughes cautioned, however, that the difference between Kerry’s poll numbers now and when he spoke in that Boston convention center shows just how fleeting a lead can be.
Nevertheless, “Kerry’s chances for winning this election are becoming dim,” Hughes said delightedly.