Second Thots

Sometimes one has to step back, take pause, and have some "second thots"

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

 

Is this true?


Noted Republican political guru Mike Murphy wrote the following in assessing the dynamics between the two candidates now running for the White House,

Kerry's mistake is that it is impossible to have a serious campaign-winning political victory over the administration without a serious policy difference between the two.
I'm of the belief that a challenger can have a similar policy on Iraq and still win the election. The problem with Kerry, however, is his own party. He will lose much of his base if he is seen as mimicking the President's war stance. We already saw this dynamic emerge when Kerry took Bush's bait by declaring, while standing in front of the Grand Canyon, that he still would have voted for authorizing the war even knowing what he knows now. The anti-war bubble on the left started letting out air faster than you can say, "Four More Years!"

Indeed, it's my assertion that Kerry's vehement anti-war posturing can only hurt his standing among independent American voters. They may have their doubts about Iraq. They still want America to prevail. John Kerry finds himself having to cater to a political wing of his party which he himself helped cultivate by his anti-Vietnam protests when he came back from that war.

Much as Bush took the economy off the table in the 2000 election, I think a quasi pro-war position could take the Iraq war off the table. But, as Kerry's failed Democratic opponent Howard Dean demonstrated, his party will have none of it. For that matter, as the Swift Boat campaign may have exposed, people might realize that in his heart of hearts citizen Kerry will have none of it either.


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