Kerry should try to turn debate into a fistfight
If RCP's John McIntyre is right about this, tomorrow night's first head-to-head match between the POTUS and his hapless, effete challenger should be very entertaining indeed.
"At this stage Kerry only has one choice left, and that is to try and destroy the President's internals.
"The Bush campaign has done a masterful job of tarring Kerry as a serial flip-flopper. Furthermore, Kerry himself has been all over the place on the central issue of Iraq, leaving him no room to debate on the issues. Kerry's only hope is to bring Bush's numbers down into the toilet with his."
Hasn't the far left been trying to do this for the past year and a half? And now Kerry has to do it in the space of an hour and a half? Yikes.
"If I were the Kerry people, I would focus on two clips of video. The first is Bush's debate with McCain in 2000 where McCain's dressing down and interruptions caused Bush to visibly lose his cool. Kerry should take the tactic of Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men and try and goad President Bush into losing his temper. The only way Kerry can win this debate, is to make President Bush lose it."
Thing is, if that's the debate that I remember, Bush losing his cool helped him rather than hurt him, since McCain came off looking like an asshole.
"Obviously this is an extremely high risk strategy. It is also quite likely that this type of tactic will backfire and leave John Kerry looking like a complete jerk, instead of the President. But Kerry is in so much trouble right now that if he truly wants to be President he has to roll the dice, play to win, and forget about the possible consequences."
And as we know, "rolling the dice" is not in John Kerry's psychological makeup. He's a calculator, a conniver, a mental paralytic who compulsively thinks through every possible permutation of a decision before finally making it, and then indulges in endless introspective second-guessing and hand-wringing and back-tracking and finger-pointing when it goes kerflooey. Which makes it very fortunate for him that he didn't choose a career as a chess player instead, or he'd never have lived through his first game.
Kerry is what Kerry is. He's not a gambler, and he's not capable of playing one on TV.
Which is why his making the attempt would be "must see TV"...
"I suspect the Bush campaign is well aware this tactic is a potential vulnerability for the President - which is why they negotiated so many rules into the debate format so as to forbid tactics that might lead to the President losing his temper. Kerry should throw caution to the wind and break the rules."
In short, Kerry's only chance tomorrow night is to do the very thing that cost Al Gore the debates, and the election, four years ago, only on maximum overdrive. And no matter how Dubya reacts to it (short of grabbing Brah-man's ChiComm rifle and going postal), Dubya wins.
And this is on top of what Dick Morris has been saying about Kerry alienating part of his base no matter what he says about Iraq, and perhaps all of it if he tries yet another straddle.
"All President Bush has to do is ignore Kerry and stick to what he has been saying on the campaign trail. Let Kerry win with the armchair pundits and the professional debate scorers. As long as Bush keeps his cool and sticks to his message, he's the winner on Election Day."
And then the "he coulda been a contendah" jokes can begin.
"At this stage Kerry only has one choice left, and that is to try and destroy the President's internals.
"The Bush campaign has done a masterful job of tarring Kerry as a serial flip-flopper. Furthermore, Kerry himself has been all over the place on the central issue of Iraq, leaving him no room to debate on the issues. Kerry's only hope is to bring Bush's numbers down into the toilet with his."
Hasn't the far left been trying to do this for the past year and a half? And now Kerry has to do it in the space of an hour and a half? Yikes.
"If I were the Kerry people, I would focus on two clips of video. The first is Bush's debate with McCain in 2000 where McCain's dressing down and interruptions caused Bush to visibly lose his cool. Kerry should take the tactic of Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men and try and goad President Bush into losing his temper. The only way Kerry can win this debate, is to make President Bush lose it."
Thing is, if that's the debate that I remember, Bush losing his cool helped him rather than hurt him, since McCain came off looking like an asshole.
"Obviously this is an extremely high risk strategy. It is also quite likely that this type of tactic will backfire and leave John Kerry looking like a complete jerk, instead of the President. But Kerry is in so much trouble right now that if he truly wants to be President he has to roll the dice, play to win, and forget about the possible consequences."
And as we know, "rolling the dice" is not in John Kerry's psychological makeup. He's a calculator, a conniver, a mental paralytic who compulsively thinks through every possible permutation of a decision before finally making it, and then indulges in endless introspective second-guessing and hand-wringing and back-tracking and finger-pointing when it goes kerflooey. Which makes it very fortunate for him that he didn't choose a career as a chess player instead, or he'd never have lived through his first game.
Kerry is what Kerry is. He's not a gambler, and he's not capable of playing one on TV.
Which is why his making the attempt would be "must see TV"...
"I suspect the Bush campaign is well aware this tactic is a potential vulnerability for the President - which is why they negotiated so many rules into the debate format so as to forbid tactics that might lead to the President losing his temper. Kerry should throw caution to the wind and break the rules."
In short, Kerry's only chance tomorrow night is to do the very thing that cost Al Gore the debates, and the election, four years ago, only on maximum overdrive. And no matter how Dubya reacts to it (short of grabbing Brah-man's ChiComm rifle and going postal), Dubya wins.
And this is on top of what Dick Morris has been saying about Kerry alienating part of his base no matter what he says about Iraq, and perhaps all of it if he tries yet another straddle.
"All President Bush has to do is ignore Kerry and stick to what he has been saying on the campaign trail. Let Kerry win with the armchair pundits and the professional debate scorers. As long as Bush keeps his cool and sticks to his message, he's the winner on Election Day."
And then the "he coulda been a contendah" jokes can begin.
posted by JASmius at 10:59 PM
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