Friday 12 March
President Bush didn't stay above the fray of negative campaigning for long.
His campaign's first TV attack ad ran yesterday, calling John Kerry "wrong on taxes, wrong on defence", and implied that because Kerry had been critical of the conduct of the war in Iraq, that he was somehow reluctant to "defend America".
Kerry, for his part, launched the "DBunker" on his campaign web site, designed to rebut the claims by his oppponent without getting sucked into an expensive back-and-forth on television spots.
The "War Room" approach - where teams of subject-based activists respond almost immediately to erroneous attacks and thus rebalance the news cycle without allowing the claims to gain traction - worked well for Bill Clinton in 1992, and particularly effectively for Tony Blair's Labour party in their 1997 election victory.
With this campaign threatening to grow increasingly nasty, with both sides competing for the most telling and lasting image; and both trying to define the other before they can do so themselves, an independent arbiter like Factcheck.org will help us ordinary folks keep on top of the claims and counter-claims.
Finally, so much for the John McCain stories that gained currency the other day. It seems the Republican senator now isn't so sure it'd be a good idea to consider a place on the Kerry ticket.
Anyone have Pat Buchanan's number?
President Bush didn't stay above the fray of negative campaigning for long.
His campaign's first TV attack ad ran yesterday, calling John Kerry "wrong on taxes, wrong on defence", and implied that because Kerry had been critical of the conduct of the war in Iraq, that he was somehow reluctant to "defend America".
Kerry, for his part, launched the "DBunker" on his campaign web site, designed to rebut the claims by his oppponent without getting sucked into an expensive back-and-forth on television spots.
The "War Room" approach - where teams of subject-based activists respond almost immediately to erroneous attacks and thus rebalance the news cycle without allowing the claims to gain traction - worked well for Bill Clinton in 1992, and particularly effectively for Tony Blair's Labour party in their 1997 election victory.
With this campaign threatening to grow increasingly nasty, with both sides competing for the most telling and lasting image; and both trying to define the other before they can do so themselves, an independent arbiter like Factcheck.org will help us ordinary folks keep on top of the claims and counter-claims.
Finally, so much for the John McCain stories that gained currency the other day. It seems the Republican senator now isn't so sure it'd be a good idea to consider a place on the Kerry ticket.
Anyone have Pat Buchanan's number?
posted by Steve at 7:14 AM
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