Is That The Best He Could Do?
I was terribly unimpressed by the Kerry speech. I do think he will get a small bounce – a few points — but I don’t think it will last long. He won’t get any bounce from the speech itself, but from the media surrounding it. The people who would not sit through a 55 minute speech (most everyone I know) will see Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw, the chicks on The View, etc., talking about what an incredible success it was.
I think he succeeded on two of the three points I talked about last week.
1) Perception – he did pretty well on this point. He surrounded himself with the band-of-brothers and left viewers with those images, but he set up a big ticking timebomb with that, too. When voters learn about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and other anti-Kerry vet groups, they might feel a little duped. He did a lot more attacking than I would have expected, but the media will never point that out, so only those who already liked Kerry enough to watch the entire speech will realize it and they will love him for it.
2) Expectations – he did best on this point. I said “The way I see it, if Kerry can produce enough pink in his cheeks to convince people that he has a pulse, he will have greatly exceeded expectations.” Okay, he has a pulse.
3) Timing – I think the timing of the convention is a real problem for Democrats. The Olympics will start soon, which will slow any momentum he might get. It is summer and people are on vacation or just aren’t concentrating on politics like they will be in September. I expect some great jobs, growth and other economic numbers will be coming out soon to make Kerry and Edwards’ doom and gloom economic talk sound uninformed and divorced from reality. Bush gets to go last, closer to the election, just before 9/11 in NYC with Guiliani — that is hard to beat.
In conclusion, unless another terrorist attack takes place on U.S. soil in such a way that it can be blamed on a deficiency of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies, or Bush makes a blunder of monumental proportions in the debates, Bush will win in a rather big way.
UPDATE: In addition to the mistake Kerry made by placing too much emphasis on Vietnam, which will give extra importance to the opposition of Kerry by vet groups, he also messed up by not addressing his two decade long Senate record. Not only can Bush/Cheney now point out the record of votes Kerry didn’t take the opportunity to explain or defend, but they can show demonstrably (minutes allocated in Edwards and Kerry speeches) that Kerry is trying to hide his Senate record.
UPDATE 2: John Hawkins has a good take on the speech. I think I agree with everything he wrote here.
UPDATE 3: The Balloon Malfunction - I have been hearing about this all night, but didn’t hear it because I wasn’t watching CNN. Drudge has the text of the great bleeping balloon malfunction. It is too *bleeping* funny.
UPDATE 4: (This is an update record for me.) Kate O’Beirne has some great comments on the speech at The Corner. I agree with everything she says, too.
UPDATE 5: Betsy Newmark’s review of the speech is up. I especially like her points that Kerry’s cheap shot about Bush “wanting” to go to war is particularly terrible demagoguery for a man who voted for the war and her point that when he attacks the Saudis he is attacking an ally. I thought Bush was the one going around alienating and offending our allies.
UPDATE 6: Matthew May has a good piece at The American Thinker about how Kerry missed the ball by failing to convince us that he truly understands the serious threat of terrorism.
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