AUG 1 - 15, 2004

VOL. 2 ISSUE 15

AUGUST 9, 2004 – First, battleground polls from ARG's Dick Bennett (all taken just before the convention so no bounce affects these:)

WEST VIRGINIA:  "In a survey conducted July 26-28, Kerry is at 47%, Bush is at 
44%, and Ralph Nader is at 3%. Without Nader on the ballot, it is Kerry 
48% and Bush 44%. The three-way race is unchanged from June."

OHIO:  "John Kerry and George W. Bush are tied among likely voters in Ohio. In 
a survey conducted July 20-22, Kerry is at 47%, Bush is at 45%, and 
Ralph Nader is at 3%. Without Nader on the ballot, it is Kerry 48% and 
Bush 46%."

OREGON:  "John Kerry leads George W. Bush among likely voters in Oregon. In a 
survey conducted July 19-22, Kerry is at 50%, Bush is at 42%, and Ralph 
Nader is at 4%. Without Nader on the ballot, it is Kerry 50% and Bush 
43%.  Kerry's favorable is up to 53% from 48% in May and his unfavorable is 
at 35%, up from 29% May. Bush's favorable is unchanged at 46% and his 
unfavorable is at 48%, up from 42% in May."

Thanks as always to Dick Bennett and his American Research Group for this info.  As you can see, Kerry has and does lead in Ohio polls.  For some reason the non-M/I media keeps pretending otherwise.  Many people forgot about this game from the last election.  Remember, the "inevitability" the media talked about as far as two years before the election, how George Bush was going to win, how it was inevitable, even if it never happened in the end?

Yes, welcome to the beginning of the ground war - which is the real campaign.  Forget the stupid ads and fundraisers.

How does the Bush ground war work?

Well, let's go back to the primary debates.  During the last primary debate on FOX News, during the "analysis" period afterward, an ad ran.  No, not from the Bush campaign.  No, not from a conservative group.  This ad was run by.... the Department of Homeland Security.

Yes, not so coincidentally, right in prime time following a Democratic Presidential candidate debate, right on the very station the debate had just aired on, on comes Tom Ridge - paid for with you tax payer dollars - to remind us all to be scared in a meaningless ad that warned us all to run out and buy duct tape and plastic (no, this is not a joke, the ad really ran and this is what it said.)

We told you during the primaries, back in this article we ran on January 21:

"President Bush has a lot in store for the upcoming election, but it will be like his version of the War on Terror – covert, and on offense.  He will not simply present himself and try to win support.  There will be interference at every turn, every tactic used to make sure the Democrats don’t get heard, complete use of their media machine to personally attack and smear while the President seems to have nothing to do with it."

And now you see it happening.

Right before the Democratic Convention, Tom Ridge shows up at the Fleet Center in Boston and makes a very public appearance to show the Republicans are there and have to protect the Democrats in this War on Terror.

Then - and this one never even got commented on - just hours before Kerry was to give his CConvention speech, a news story is dropped reporting that a "high-level" al Qaeda suspect invovled in the 1998 bombings of our embassies in East Africa.  Read the CNN story on it and tell me if you notice something.

How about this sentence:  "The Pakistani security sources said the arrests took place Sunday morning after a standoff that began Saturday night in Gujrat, just southeast of Islamabad."

The arrest happened Sunday, but the story was held until... just hours before Kerry was to give his convention speech almost 5 days later.  It broke all over the place, such as in this USA Today story, just hours before Kerry was to speak (look at the time this article was posted:  3:43 PM the day of Kerry's speech.

Sure they claimed innocence, that it was all coincidence the story - held for five days - just came out then.

But we told you this was what they will do throughout the election cycle months ago, and it is no coincidence.

The timing of the Ridge ad was no coincidence, the timing of this announcement was no coincidence.  We saw the Bush campaign strategy in 2002.  The idea is to come up with something to suck the media air out, to make sure there is no space for the other side to be heard.

Sound horrible?  Well, think about this:  this is exactly what they do on AM radio and FOX News.  That is the Bush/Limbaughians m.o., make sure the other side never gets their chance to speak.

We have started to see the stories in the non-M/I media about how these terror alerts - this constant flow from alert to alert - have now changed forced the candidates to rethink their campaign strategies.

If that is true for the Kerry campaign, then they are useless.

They have to know - as we did - that this is the central tool of the Bush re-election plan.  Whether it be the trial of Saddam, the capture of Osama, or just endless terrorist warnings and arrest announcements popping up right before the debates, the Bush team will make sure to dominate and occupy the gullible and willingly herded non-M/I media, making sure Kerry has as little chance of becoming known by the American people as possible, thinking all along that if Kerry doesn't become well known, people with stick with Bush by default.

Remember the timing of the push to attack Iraq?  From a November 7, 2002 White House Press Conference, President Bush speaking:

"This is an important week for our country and for the world. The United Nations will vote tomorrow on a resolution bringing the civilized world together to disarm Saddam Hussein. Here at home, our citizens have voted in an election that I believe will strengthen our ability to make progress for all the American people."

Yes, remember, Iraq had to be dealt with right during what should have been the campaign election cycle.  Right the very week of the election the vote had to occur.  Back then they said it was because Iraq was such an imminent threat - now they pretend they never said "imminent" - even if they did on camera - and only said "growing" or "gathering" threat.  If it wasn't imminent, as we now know it wasn't - and they say they didn't mean it was - the pushing of Iraq on the time frame it did can only be interpreted as part of their campaign strategy - which they also made clear it was in that famed leaked memo talking about the "roll out" of the "new product" of Iraq in the proper timing.

Forget coming up with the right policies, forget clever slogans, the Kerry campaign better start dealing first with the right-wing domination of the media, and then the Bush campaigns strategy of feeding fake story after fake story to eliminate any chance of Kerry being heard.

BEHIND THE SCENES WITH THE KERRY CAMP

On the way to a campaign event, the Kerry staff has a little discussion.  Should they size up and vet out the reporters and crowd as they usually do?

One staffer inside Teresa Heinz-Kerry's motorcade made the decision not to bother for one little event.  It was just going to be a short stop, an in-and-out.

Had they done their usual routine, Heinz-Kerry never would have come face to face with the right-wing hack who attempted to inflammatorily misrepresent her words.  As we all know, Kerry left the reporter briefly to talk to her staff, who informed her - belatedly - that this guy was just a right-wing hack.  By that time the insult had already been landed and Heinz-Kerry, realizing she had been duped, let the reporter have it with her now famous, "Shove it," comment.

Don't suppose they'll be making that decision again anytime soon.

Back inside the Kerry camp motorcade, this time John Kerry's motorcade just a short while before his speech was to be given.  Everything was going as planned except for one problem - Teresa hadn't gotten on her plane yet and so was going to be late for his speech.

Since losing her husband, the late Senator Heinz, in a small plane crash, Heinz-Kerry refuses to board small planes, and so refused to board the plane her current husband had lined up for her, and so was going to be late for the biggest speech of his life.

A heated exchange ensued between the Democratic nominee and his the misses, for which the staff left Kerry alone in his vehicle.  A little shouting, a couple of near profanities.  Kerry wasn't being insensitive, but anyone who has ever been in a relationship can imagine.  Take the usual, "Honey, come on, we can't be late for this one," and multiply it by the fate of the free world hanging in the balance.

In the end Kerry had to change his speech.  The portion about "being born in the West Wing" was to be longer, but Heinz-Kerry's presence was required for that part, so it was cut down to the short bit it became.

Maybe that's why Kerry was so fired up and gave a speech that blew away his stodgy image - and maybe that was Teresa's plan all along.  Soon everything was peachy once again and they were double dating with the Edwardses through Wendy's drive-thru.

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