FIGHTING MEAN
Sen. John Kerry has apparently let attack dog
political consultant Bob Shrum off his leash. Over
the weekend, former Sen. Max Cleland, who lost his
Georgia Senate seat in 2002, put out a statement through the Kerry
campaign that essentially called President Bush a coward for
serving in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam war and
attacked former Vermont Gov. Howie Dean as a
weasel for taking medical deferments instead of serving.
Cleland, who lost both his legs in the war, was responding to
recent reports about Dean, who got a medical deferment for a bad
back, then proudly detailed spending weeks on end skiing in
Colorado. (At least he wasn’t skiing in Canada.)
The tough talk from surrogates is being tied to Shrum, the
bare-knuckled senior adviser to Kerry and the author of Kerry’s
latest batch of stump speeches in which he portrays himself as “The
Real Deal.”
Never mind that this has been the slogan of MSNBC’s “Joe
Scarborough Show” for months, or that Kerry’s “Real Deal” is the
third try at a creative packaging of the Massachusetts junior
senator.
“It feels like we’re grasping at straws,” says a New Hampshire
volunteer for the Kerry camp. “He doesn’t want to fight through the
obstacles, instead he just tries to sidestep them by having his
staff re-create him.”
Kerry’s staff is hoping that going negative in a nuclear way
against Dean will give them a toe-hold on good news moving into the
critical months before the New Hampshire primary. While Kerry has
consistently said he will stay in the primary race regardless of
the early outcomes, a bad loss in New Hampshire would probably sink
his campaign, as he has not focused much time on the South.
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
Gen. Wesley Clark watched Bill
Clinton run his campaigns, and Bill Clinton has been
helping Clark, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Clark has
picked up a few of Clinton’s old campaign habits. For example,
Clark recently decided to pull one of his press aides off the
campaign trail and place her in Manhattan, where she will work as
his “celebrity outreach” coordinator. These political neophytes
learn quick.
WHY BROTHER?
Look for an announcement in the week after Thanksgiving that Bush
administration Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel
Martinez will run for the Senate seat opening up in
Florida with the retirement of Sen. Bob Graham.
Martinez will probably have to face off against at least one other
Republican for the GOP nomination, as Gov. Jeb
Bush has refused White House requests that he help clear
the field of competition.
