(Feel free to take this entry as an expression of frustration if you'd rather not take it at face value. I won't be offended.)
There's something to be said for the sheer audacity of the Republicans' campaign: Point your guns directly at your enemy's strongest point and blast away relentlessly. Kerry's entire campaign is designed to present him as a credible commander in chief. He is supposed to be somebody who won't start wars, who will protect the country in a meaningful way, and who can deal with terrorism. That's why he was nominated -- he was supposedly the only one who could beat Bush; he was the most "electable" of all the candidates. I don't want to fight the last war, but a cursory search of my post archive will reveal the low esteem in which I hold that argument.
So why isn't Kerry campaigning like a war hero?
We all know that Kerry isn't a wimp, nor is he a coward, nor is he a flip-flopper, nor is he any other of the myriad smears that have been thrown at him. We're all going to vote for him no matter what. It's not us that he has to convince; it's the flighty, ignorant, much-hyped "undecided voter", who feels (correctly) that it is his responsibility to vote, but who doesn't take it seriously enough to research his choices and form his own judgment.
These dilapidated souls will decide the election, just like every other year. I've seen several polls that show that partisans make up at most 66% of voters; the rest are true independents or ignorami as described above. True independents will make up their own minds, and we can only hope that enough of them agree with us to swing this thing our way (polls so far show this to be true). The obvious conclusion, which will surprise precisely no one, is to figure out how to sway these undecideds.
An undecided voter is concerned with style, not substance; image, not issues; rhetoric, not results. I submit that it is useless to use traditional persuasion tactics on them. Republicans have grasped this principle. Their convention is all about projecting negative impressions of Kerry mixed with a healthy dose of fear. It won't work on us because we're too smart to be intimidated, but it can and will work on people who don't know any better. The real election will be contested in the minds of these people, out of the reach of any poll, and it is an election that Kerry is losing.
It's probably safe to say that Bush has managed not to endear himself to many voters outside of his base -- not just us, who hold him in something beneath contempt, but also undecideds, who don't like the smell of carnage emanating from Iraq, the sound of money flowing to corporations, and their jobs either jumping overseas or disappearing outright. Yet, in the all-important image election, they will stick with Bush because all they hear from the SCLM is how Kerry sucks/flipflops/coward/etc. The image election will not be won solely with generous helpings of Johnny Sunshine's snake oil. In order to win, Kerry must attack Bush on image. Bush's vulnerabilities on issues are well documented and already being attacked. It's time to attack him on his strength: his machismo, his war president posturing, his John Wayne approach to the world. It's time to go negative on George Bush himself.
We must take the gloves off and hit Bush hard. He sat bewildered while OBL killed 3000 Americans. He ran around the country like a scared little boy. He doesn't give a damn about ordinary people. He can't think for himself. He's a dumbass.
These attacks must be personal and ad hominem. We have plenty of positive message, and Kerry doesn't even have to do much, if any, of the attacking himself. All that matters is that it put Bush on the defensive about himself. Bush is terrible when on the defensive. Hammer him relentlessly and he'll lose patience. He'll stumble. He'll say very politically incorrect things. But most of all, in the minds of these poor undecided voters, the Bush-as-great-leader meme, which they have worked so hard to build, will be irreparably damaged.
And then we've got the bastards.