March 14, 2004
A Call to Kerry
Josh Marshall makes some excellent points in this post where he recommends that Kerry needs to start attacking Bush on defense immediately. I agree and would add that, for Kerry to do so successfully, he needs to point out the numerous ways that Bush has failed to make the nation safer from terrorism. First, the war in Iraq was merely a distraction that has made our military harder to deploy elsewhere while allowing people like Zarqawi to organize mass bombings in the nation and Bin Laden to remain at large. Second, I would point out that Bush's disastrous mishandling of the economy will undermine future defense efforts by seriously weakening the economy and has already saddled us with a record deficit of over half a trillion dollars. From there, Kerry must lay out a positive plan to demonstrate what he would do differently and how it would protect us more effectively; essentially, he must run slightly to the Right of Bush on this issue. Furthermore, as Josh Marshall lays out so well, he needs to start now while the White House is staggered.
I agree. I suspect there are many Americans out there that would like to back Kerry but need a rationale. And Bush's failures on the war on terrorism are a good one. Kerry needs to be able to effectively summarize these failures and his new proposals to salvage the situation. At the same time, talking about this (and about it) will provide cover for the inevitable attacks from the GOP convention in NY.