Don't complain; fight.

The press is too lazy and insensible to be a watchdog [...].

Everybody knew who Kerry is going up against. As [Eleanor] Clift notes, this is what Kerry told them to bring on. And they're bringing it on. Democrats gave Kerry this chance to take on the president -- whose reelect number is hovering in the low to mid-forties -- because they believed he would fight and that he was electable.

Kerry is a fighter. I saw it first hand during his 1996 senate race against Bill Weld. But Kerry will never successfully parry these hits by getting tangled and stuck in the molasses of the president's lies and distortions. Getting sidetracked into a discussion of legislative maneuvering isn't the answer to the president's attacks; it's precisely what they're trying to elicit.

The answer is simply to say they're lies (while having surrogates and staffers explain why) and then to go on the attack.

[...]

The winning campaign against the president is equally clear. He doesn't tell the truth. Almost nothing he has told the American people has turned out to be true (from budgets to jobs, from wmds to his personal past). In many cases, that's because he's lied to them. In others, it's because he's promised things he had no reason to believe were true. In some instances, he just failed to deliver.

As you'll note from the Clift column, Republicans themselves know this is his central vulnerability. [Links in original -- Ed]

This is good advice, and I hope the Kerry campaign is listening.

(And while they're at it, they should also listen to my advice: right now is a damn good time to play the v.p. card -- and the choice had better be a humdinger, no party hacks or sops to "regional interests", the running mate needs to be a high profile national figure who will bring instant and prolonged media attention to the campaign and generate a lot of interest among the general public.

Needless to say, there are only a couple of people who fit this bill, and the governor of Iowa ain't one of them.)

There is little or no downside to Kerry's attacking Bush. In general , negative campaigning does suppress turnout on both sides, but that's out of Kerry's hands, since Bush is clearly going negative in a major way whether Kerry does or not. As noted in the previous post, the media will complain about how negative the campiagn is even if one candidate's claims are factual and objectively correct and the other's are baseless smears, misrepresentations and lies. (That's the corner the media has painted itself into with its obsession with "balance," which seems to preclude actually evaluating anything for its substantive truth.)

So... GO, JOHN, GO!


Update (3/21): Earlier in the piece I excerpted above, Josh Marhsall wrote, about Kerry's vacation:

A thought: if your opponent has $100 million to portray you as an effete snob, don't go on vacation to a fancy ski resort in Idaho.

Nobody's asking, but just for the record, I think this is a bit of a low blow.

No matter where Kerry went, the right would make fun of his vacationing, because that's what they do. If he went to any of the other places a man of his income bracket and public status would normally go, they'd make fun of his elitism. If he checked into a Motel 6 on the strip in Panama City and mingled with the hoi polloi while swimming in the Gulf, they'd make fun of his trying to pass for a regular guy. There's no way to win against that kind of b.s., so why try?

I assume the decision on where to go was made on the basis of what would best relax, rejuvenate and reinvigorate Kerry, and that's only as it should be, because he clearly needed it. There's a very long haul ahead of him, 7+ months of non-stop campaigning against a man who has $200 million dollars and an official bully pulpit to get what he wants.

There's no reason that Bush will let up between now and the election, which means that Kerry has to go that distance without stopping as well. There will be few opportunities for relaxation and restoration between now and then, so let the man go where he can get the most good, and, in this particular instance, damn the silly comments from the right.

Here's a good way to look at it: will Jon Stewart, Jay Leno or David Letterman make fun of Kerry for skiing? Probably not, so don't worry about it.