“It’s the candidate, not the consultants"

Here are two more pre-post-mortems on the debacle that is the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

Joan Vennochi in the Boston Globe:

It’s the candidate, not the consultants.

A new circle of advisers can hand John Kerry a new line of attack, such as stating that the W in his opponent's name stands for ‘wrong.’ But they can't stop Kerry from holding up a rifle he received as a gift while visiting Racine, WV, and quipping, ‘I thank you for the gift, but I can't take it to the debate with me.’

Consultants can persuade Kerry to recycle Howard Dean's…critique of the conflict in Iraq as ‘the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ But they can't erase Kerry's recent statement that he would vote for the war knowing what he knows today, nor can he eliminate his litany of back-and-forth statements regarding Iraq and Saddam Hussein. (See the link to kerryoniraq.com on the Republican National Committee website.)

Democrats continue to believe that if only they put the right people in the back room or on the candidate's airplane, they will defeat George W. Bush. Strategy counts, but the candidate counts more. Bill Clinton, not James Carville or Paul Begala, won election and reelection.

And this nad shot from Alec Russell in the London Daily Telegraph:

The truth is that Kerry has had a disastrous month, fumbling his message on Iraq and failing to refute a brutal but utterly predictable assault on his character. If, as seems likely right now, Mr Kerry loses in November, he has only himself to blame.

Watching Mr Kerry try to take on Mr Bush brings to mind a classic moment in that cult film of the 1980s, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones is trapped in a back-alley in an Egyptian souk.

A crowd closes in as a giant Arab steps forward wielding a scimitar. Snick-snack it goes through the air, faster and faster. The audience tenses. Indy shudders.

Then he draws a pistol from his belt and shoots the Arab in the forehead. Game over. The crowd drifts away.

I think that was a frequent and fondly remembered Benny Hill skit as well…