Via the AP: Cahill: Kerry Camp Underestimated Ads
The campaign manager for Sen. John Kerry’s failed presidential bid said Wednesday she regrets underestimating the impact of an attack advertisement that questioned Kerry’s Vietnam War record.
I would take it a step further (indeed, several steps): the Kerry campaign utterly underestimated the impact of Kerry’s post-Viet Nam “adventures” and wholly over-estimated the degree to which his service equated into an automatic view by the public of Kerry as CinC material.
To simply say that the SwiftBoat ads were the whole story is just further evidence that the Kerry campaign had some serious blind spots about their candidate’s career and how that, in turn, influenced voters’ perceptions.
Even beyond that: the Kerry campaigns’ over-focus on a specific slice of his biography made him extremely vulnerable to attack. It was classic putting all of one’s eggs in one basket.
Unavoidable since he only had the one basket.
Comment by Dave Schuler — Thursday, December 16, 2024 @ 1:29 pm
You run a campaign with the basket you have.
Comment by Dave Schuler — Thursday, December 16, 2024 @ 1:30 pm