from the 1st presidential debate:
GWB: "my opponent voted for the iraq war, but not to fund it"
JFK: "though mr. bush often gets confused about it, i did vote to fund the iraq war, whereas he insisted that rather than fund it, we ought to charge it, and let some future generation pick up the bill for $87 billion."
GWB: "my tax cuts are working for american families."
JFK: "ladies and gentlemen, my fellow americans, the sad truth is there was no tax cut. those checks you received in the mail were nothing a loan from your children and your grandchildren. mr. bush has mortgaged our children's future in an attempt to buy the good will of the public."
more after the jump....
you can only say "biggest deficit in history" and "record surpluses to record deficits" so many times before people start hearing blah blah blah. but the debts bush has incurred, especially contrasted with clinton's record, are truly astounding and (i think) compelling to a number of voter groups where kerry has room to grow: republicans, libertarians, independents, perot voters, nader voters, suburban heads of household, etc. it would be swell to inject this story line back into the campaign in fresh new ways. we've not seen it done really effectively since that very first moveon.org ad (remember? hint: it did not involve hitler).
why is works:
(1) the deficit numbers are entirely objective. talking points that rely on argument take a lot of energy and repetition to sustain and are open to (potentially effective) counter argument. but the deficit is there in black and white and cannot be argued away (bush's "fuzzy math" defense won't work this time). this is the sister issue to the job losses, which have seen much more play. that's reasonable since its impact on people is much more immediate, but the deficit issue is just as damning from a performance standpoint.
(2) this line of attack can be used to neutralize many of bush's positives. why? because for just about everything bush has done that people approve of, it can truly be said that he was only able to deliver it through massive borrowing. this leads directly to the suggestion that anything bush has given us is of the most fleeting, illusory value. the analogy is that of am irresponsible youth who is very popular so long as he spends freely on his friends, but one day the credit cards are maxed out, the repo man comes, and the party's over.
weaknesses:
(1) saying "the party's over" is a killjoy. on top of that, we live in a credit card society. so in a sense, calling bush out on this may bring feelings of guilt to many voters themselves. but acknowledging joe public's trials with debt could turn thing. "if you can't make your car payment or your house payment, they come and take your car, they come foreclose on your home. but mr. bush can borrow through the roof with no consequences - it's not his name he's signing on all these IOU's, it's your name, it's the names of all americans and our children too."
(2) bush can play the "9/11, recession, and iraq war made me do it " card. the immediate response is "well, 2 of those 3 were problems of your own creation." but in the long run i don't think this defense works for bush, and it plays right into the recent meme of the "excuse president."