Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

March 03, 2004

A Strategy To Beat Kerry

Dick Morris outlines a three-part strategy for President Bush to "destroy" Sen. John Kerry:

• First, his paid media must attack Kerry’s voting record to define him as an ultraliberal. There are likely those in the White House who are urging Bush to run positive ads. That won’t work.
• Second, while his anti-Kerry ads are running, the president himself needs to make Americans understand that the war on terror is still atop our national agenda. He needs to elevate the sense of threat so that his advantage as a war president begins to count.
• Finally, Bush must begin to pull American troops out of Iraq after the handover in June. He should leave a sufficient number there, in safe, secluded bases, to intervene if the bad guys try to come back in power. But the daily drip of casualties must end.

"If Bush’s ads and surrogates savage Kerry while the president raises the profile of the war on terror and his foreign-policy team brings the troops home, this race could be over long before either Bush or Kerry is officially designated as the standard bearers of his respective party."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the creator of Political Wire, a political column updated around the clock with the most interesting news, buzz and commentary.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

This is a personal site and does not necessarily reflect the views of any company, political campaign or advocacy group.

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