When a candidate's campaign staffers speak, they are often taken (usually correctly) to represent the views of the entire campaign.
Since Kerry is now the nominee apparent of the Democratic Party, it's now our job to start offering corrective insight to the Kerry campaigns problems. I'd be rather (pleasantly) surprised if the Kerry camp actually listens to what we say, though.
Here's my first suggestion to the Kerry camp - get Steve Elmendorf off of television, now. He's been making the cable news circuit today - he was on Inside Politics this afternoon and was just on Hannity and Colmes.
Some campaign managers are very effective at doing the talking head thing. Probably the most impressive thing about Joe Trippi was how forthright and self-certain he appeared. When he talked, you believed him, even if he was talking nonsense.
Elmendorf - if today's appearances are to be taken as a representative sample - is simply incapable of comforting anybody. He appears weak, indecisive, and evasive. In many ways, his appearances have (perhaps unfairly) further deepened similar concerns I have about Candidate Kerry.
On Inside Politics, Judy Woodruff kept trying to get Elmendorf to acknowledge what everyone with a brain knows - that Bush was about to unload on Kerry in hopes of permanently damaging. Elmendorf, in a manner that just screamed clueless, kept insisting that the Kerry campaign had successfully sold Americans on Kerry already.
Riiiiiiiiiiight.
On Hannity, he started off by answering a question about taxes by speaking in platitudes about Kerry "turning the economy around." It took about 2 microseconds for Hannity to spank Elmendorf for avoiding his question.
It's perfectly fine to peeve reporters - if you do it in a way that projects strength. You've got to be able to turn their question around. Unfortunately, that is not what happened.
(I use the word "reporter" liberally, since Hannity is clearly an egomaniacal demagogue)
Please, please let this not be the tone and attitude of the Kerry campaign. While Elmendorf must clearly have some intelligence for being able to turn around Kerry's campaign, he just doesn't make me feel good about Kerry.
And since he's apparently our man, I really could use some comforting words right now.