I recommend the Maureen Dowd column for today, titled
"Getting Junior's Goat" which is a fairly wicked title.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/opinion/07dowd.html
Dowd paints a credible picture. I am never sure how much to credit this sort of politico-psychology. On the other hand, it gave me a great idea (thanks Maureen).
What the Kerry campaign could reasonably do, which I think would have a devastating effect, would be to run an ad showing raging mobs on the streets of Baghdad, while a voice reads out a text that scrolls past, containing these quotes:
- George HW Bush's explanation as to why he thought it would have been crazy to invade Iraq, since the US would have found itself occupying a hostile nation.
- Dick Cheney's comments from his Seattle speech, saying Iraq would have become a quagmire, and that capturing Saddam Hussein was in his estimation "not worth very many American lives".
I cannot think of any effective response the GOP could mount to that theme.