Tricky Timing

I urge everyone to read this Liberal Oasis piece on smears. Smears are the most difficult tactic to combat in any campaign and it has been made even harder by the scandal junkies of cable TV and talk radio. There is no formula.


Fighting Smears

Maureen Dowd, like many backseat campaign managers, has never had to defend against a smear campaign.

Addressing a smear is one of the hardest, trickiest, most delicate things in politics.

Condemn it too early, you raise its profile and spread it places where it hadn't been heard yet, and may never had been heard.

Wait too long, and it becomes perceived truth.

And there's no textbook timeframe how long to wait, because every smear's trajectory and potency is different.

Managing the timing is art, not science.

Those like Maureen Dowd -- who said on Sunday that Kerry seemed to be "caught off guard" by the Swift Boat Liar attack, because he waited to respond -- don't know what they're talking about.

Kerry surely knew this was coming.

Similar attacks began in February of this year. And he has successfully fought off such attacks in past campaigns, with the help of fellow vets.

Kerry was on guard. He simply was patient, trying to sense if the smear was gaining traction.

And he wanted to stick to his post-convention plan, touring battleground states, driving his messages from his acceptance speech, completing his introduction to the public.


Read the rest, it's great.

I would just add that I think the "Kerry waitied too long" CW that's forming is a media driven excuse that lets them off the hook. They know that they are responsible for allowing these assholes to be taken seriously at all and instead of taking responsibility for failing at their job they are blaming the victim. It's an old story with these guys. "Oh he should have fought back a week earlier." Well, if the press were in the business of journalism instead of bloodsport entertainment, they would have investigated these guys before they gave them hours and hours of airtime to spread their filthy little psychodrama all of over airwaves. The people who waited too long were the journalists.

Don't fall for the hype. I heard all these talking heads today going on and on about how this has hurt Kerry and yet they have no evidence to back that up, other than their own guilt.

It reminds me of an earlier time when every single pundit idiot in washington predicted for month after month after month that Clinton was going down. They were just positive of it. "Any day now," they said, "the American people are going to reject this deplorable behavior." The screeched at the highest decibels on every cable show 24/7. Each new revelation was the smoking gun that was going to end his presidency. The 1998 election was supposed to be a deathblow.

And month after month after month more than 60% of the American people continued to support Clinton and the '98 election was a blow out for the Democrats.

Don't believe anything these people say about what "the American people" think. They are celebrities who have as much contact and understanding of everyday Americans as Madonna does. Wait for real data. We'll know soon enough.