Catching Up

Mickey Kaus is running the Kerry campaign shuffle story to ground.

"Sources say major changes could come at the campaign's highest level." That's the juiciest sentence in CNN's Kerry Shake-Up story. Not much else there, though. Except this:

Several campaign officials and advisers say they recognize the need to have an "adult" traveling with the candidate -- as one put it, "someone who can tell him to shut up ..."

Adult? WTF is Mary Beth Cahill? A potted plant?

Update: At least WSJ's Al Hunt is on the Kerry Shake-Up case. He's short on names and dances around the 'Whither-Shrum' issue, but he does have Kerry "said to be 'bouncing off the walls' in frustration." The CW diagnosis of Kerry's problem, according to Hunt?

Leading Democrats describe a command structure often frozen -- or at least tempered -- by too many chefs, a too-heavy reliance on polls or focus groups and an aversion to risks. As a result, the message often is muddled and the reaction to hard-hitting attacks from Republicans often is slow and unconvincing. [Emphasis added.]

Two questions: 1) Message? What message? That's the problem! Vietnam was, for Kerry, the substitute for a message; 2) Why, exactly, would a quicker and harder-hitting reaction to the Swifty attacks have helped Kerry? Mightn't it have made the attacks an even bigger deal? [Update: Bill Carrick agrees!] Even today, Kerry's answers on a) Cambodia and b) the first Purple Heart are less than 100% satisfactory. Yes, a full-Ferraro press conference might put the Swifty issue to rest, but the Kerry camp is obviously unwilling to risk that.

Only two questions Mickey? How about why we would trust a man who cannot handle a campaign team to manage the free world?

Posted by feste at September 1, 2004 09:41 PM | TrackBack