Thursday, September 09, 2004

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose?

George Will has up a new column in the Washington Post today where he strongly questions John Kerry's strategy of banking his whole campaign on the War in Iraq, and the historical War in Vietnam. He notes that Kerry has succeeded in doing exactly what the Bush campaign might have desired - he has made the election a one-issue debate.

Almost any good news, about the economy or war, will help Bush. And the most likely bad news, about the war, is apt to hurt Kerry in two ways. It will make his preferred domestic policy issues seem minor and will reinforce Bush's theme that he is the candidate most focused on and muscular about the world's multiplying dangers.

While George Will is no friend to Kerry ideologically, he does outline the thing about the senators campaign that mystifies friends and foes alike. Why run on a vapid Vietnam record, when your only Vietnam accomplishment of note is that you actually went and served? And why stop talking about domestic issues, when Bush's main weakness is on the domestic front? Oh, well. Just cuz I don't get it, doesn't mean there ain't a strategy.

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