Am i alone in a desire for Kerry to toe the line of positivity?

[digno dave]

I know there is plenty to gripe about with Bush but don't most Americans want a positive message from a candidate?
One of the reason Clinton was able to beat daddy Bushh was because of his positive outlook.
And don't blame the media choosing to showing only Kerry's crticisms of Bush during his stump speeches. He can choose to be more discreet in his crticisms without coming across as whiny or viscious.

Again, before you jump on my ass for being "anti-Kerry", I am just looking out for what i believe the ELECTORATE will respond to.

[BurtWorm]

1. Kerry is not Clinton and he's not Edwards.

He doesn't have the sunniness either of those guys had. But this may not be the year for sunniness, otherwise your fellow Dems would have chosen Edwards instead.

I'd rather Kerry not pretend to be something he isn't. (Like a "moderate.")

[gone fishing]

2. i agree "it's

the economy stupid"

[orwell]

3. Restore America

I agree with you completely. Kerry should release surrogates to do the smearing. He should, as much as possible, outline his vision for restoring American liberty and justice.

O

[sadiesworld]

4. The only ones who appear whiny to me are the Bushies....

"Apologize, you're mean". "Take that back".

[rock]

5. Yes, you're alone

Don't ask us (or Kerry) to treat the other side as gentlemen and ladies. They're not, they're assholes.

[digno dave]

14. apparently not

rtrt

[THUNDER HANDS]

6. I agree with you

I don't want Kerry to be Mr. Negativity all the time. But I have no doubts that Kerry has a positive vision for the future and will lay that out for everyone to see.

Right now, he's down in the trenches with Bush, which is exactly where Bush doesn't want to be, 8 months before the election.

[goclark]

7. Repubs Kgn. Bullies

I agree about a positive campaign. I wish that the Repubs would be kind,but they won't.

I say, when they are kind(which they won't be) be kind.
When they are vicious and LIE, call them on it.

Repubs take kindness for weakness.
Democrats take kindness for kindness.

Kerry has a lot of time to be kind but now he has to bat down the flies with the fly swatter.

Remember the bullies in elementary school? Think of the Repubs as little kindergartners.They want to have all the toys and never share anything. Now John Kerry finds himself as the teacher for a bunch of Kgn. bullies. He has got to show them that he is in charge of his campaign,they are not.

If he is as good a teacher as I believe that he is -- they will learn that if they mess up,they will be in trouble and won't be able to go out to recess!

:silly:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

8. I think once the convention comes around and he is able

to communicate to a larger audience, he will probably take a positive approach. It is important while most people are still not paying attention that he lets the Bushies throw all their body blows at him now...so the negative baits them into doing it until they run out of breath.

[PurityOfEssence]

9. I don't know about that, but he's definitely got to watch his mouth

He's getting unsettlingly Deanish of late, and he was that way during the campaign. Here's a rule of thumb: never say anything to anyone that you can't back up and take any conceivable follow-up question. Dean, although people can kvetch 'til the cows come home about how he was betrayed, sank himself by his wild and unsubstantiable volleys of silliness. Kerry did this during the primaries too, but to a much lesser degree; the issue is that he should know better, after saying about Dean: "you can't be President and if you make a half-dozen gaffes a week."

The microphone is always on, and it's always there. The jungle has eyes, and it definitely has ears.

Okay, so I'm not addressing your issue, but it's all related. He shouldn't go for ad hominem attacks, but he should attack their policies on a character basis, and he should be relentless in this. There's no way to rise above it in this cycle; he has to fight nasty BETTER than they do.

He has to show how Junior has systematically looted this country for his greedy self and friends, and he ought to show how the delay of the Homeland Security Agency in the '02 cycle was skewed deceptively: Junior won ground by saying that we were so beholden to unions that we'd leave the country vulnerable; what needs to be said--and should have been then--is that Junior would happily leave us in peril as a threat to be able to crush the working people, destroy unions and demand godlike powers over their existence.

Positive is important, but every attack should be met with instant defense and a brutal assault on all related lies. It's a battle now for tarring one of the candidates a liar, and it has to be Junior.

Say what you may about Edwards, but he always kept his cool and held his tongue; he never had to retract a thing.

[BurtWorm]

10. You CAN'T be president if you make a dozen gaffes a week? Really?

Then what's the Bush boy doing in there?! What was Reagan doing in there. The bar has been lowered. Time to get used to it.

[PurityOfEssence]

15. In case you haven't noticed, they don't let Junior out very often

and this is precisely the reason. Yeah, I know that sounded snotty, but I was feeling snotty.

Junior's gotten a lot of grief for his gaffes--not enough, mind you--and everyone should be mindful of it. Preaching to the choir's a lot of fun, but a President has to be diplomatic and have self-control and finesse. Imagine what kind of position Junior'd be in if he had any of these traits; it makes no sense whatsoever to point out failings that the opposition suffers greatly for as examples of how these failings just don't matter.

We will have the media against us, huge piles of money against us, the sanctification of the incumbency against us and the constantly kindled fear of the electorate against us; we need everything on our side. Yeah, it sucks that we're held to a different standard, but once one's determined that--as anyone with eyes and ears should have long since done--it's a species of idiocy, self-pity or blythe folly to not take heed and get it together.

They don't let Junior out very often, and they sort of don't need to. Our guy has to sell himself, and he needs to do it immediately.

[JI7]

16. good points

although i don't think the crooks and liars thing was a gaffe. and i do believe he knew his microphone was on. and the thing about foreign leaders, or more leaders, wanting bush gone seems to be something he wants out there even if it looks like something that will hurt kerry as the gop would accuse him as being an agent of foreign governments. maybe because it's early enough in the campaign he feels it wont hurt too much in the end.

[in_cog_ni_to]

11. Playing nice didn't get Gore anywhere in 2000.

Playing "nice" lost us the 2002 midterm elections....patriotism, flag loving and supporting the war meant supporting the troops and playing "nice" got us the Patriot Act. We can no longer kowtow to this regime. We have to fight and if that means playing dirty, then we play dirty. No more nice guy Democrats! Kerry needs to ATTACK these people. Go for the juggler. :grr:

[Sparkly]

25. My thoughts exactly

This year, especially, we can't afford "nice manners." The attack machine is out to portray Kerry as weak and untrustworthy on national defense -- he *needs* to be a fighter, both to hit back against their smears and to show the grit that people believes says "he'll defend us."

(Frankly, I don't think world leaders get together and have stare-downs or double-dog-dare each other or get into fisticuffs... but somehow people think acting tough = being strong on defense, so he's gotta come across strong against the attacks.)

[youngred]

12. It's true, the electorate wants a nice candidate

and positive outlook. Unfortunately Bush has so much money that he won't play nice at all. Which means Kerry will have to answer. Plus the more angry and the more condemning he does of bush the more he stirs anger against him at this point. and there is much to be angry about

[JI7]

13. there is some truth to that

what he should do is offer his own positive views and show how that will be an improvement over what is going on now. it's ok to fight back, but it's even more important to make sure you have something positive to offer in it's place. and kerry does have something to offer but it doesn't always get reported by the media, but i guess that's something they have to figure out.

[sandnsea]

17. Maybe later

There's plenty of time to go positive after the convention. But it's pretty important to take it to Bush because negativity works and if Bush is the only one going negative it'll be almost impossible to recover.

[AgadorSparticus]

18. positive, nice=weak. "negativity"=strength

if kerry doesn't respond to each jab, he's seen as weak. the "high road" is seen as cowardly. sadly, we've become this. this is going to be a nasty fight. everyone knows it. buckle up and get ready.

[MoonRiver]

19. Been there, done that, LOST.

Nuff said.

[Democat]

33. You said it

Gore tried to be positive and we all got fucked.

[Crunchy Frog]

20. He does need to run with a positive message,

but there is no playing nice with the Republicans. Trying to place nice with them will lose the election.

He needs to somehow combine positivity and playing hardball at the same time. Pure nice won't do it.

[ecstatic]

28. He can stay clean

While letting the rest of us do his dirty work. That is the way the Repubs do it, so that is the way we must do it.

[shivaji]

21. If the economy keeps expanding at current rate, no amount of

negativity about Bushco will win it for Kerry. DO NOT forget
unemployment rate is at 5.6% currently. Which means 94.4% have
jobs, atleast those who want to work or are looking for work.

Greenspan is in no mood to increase interest rates until jobs
begin to expand at 150,000 per month or more. That will keep
people happily borrowing to buy homes and cars at low-low rates.

IMHO the only way we win this is by stressing the following:

1. Creation of universal health care system, and cost containment
for drugs and legal awards.
2. Elimination of taxcuts for those making over $250,000/year
and giving HALF of that money as additional tax breaks to
those making less than $100,000 per year.
3. Use the other half to create jobs in repairing infrastructure.
These jobs can NOT BE OUTSOURCED since work will be done here.
4. Fix Social Security so even the youngest workers of today will
collect their fair share when they retire. This may require
delaying retirement age by a couple of years.
5. Reduce cost of overseas military deployment in countries such
as Germany, S. Korea, Okinawa, Kosovo, Iraq etc. Why do we need
troops after 50 years of ending war in Germany?
6. Reform education system by injecting more competition in it.
7. Explain exactly how Kerry will get a handle on outsourcing of
jobs.

Feel free to add your POSITIVE ideas to this list.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BradCKY]

32. Czar of America?

You want to repeal the term limits? Surely your joking. LOL

[ecstatic]

23. maybe he can stay positive, but his handlers and

organizers definately have to get the nasty but true message about Bush and Co. out to the masses.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ecstatic]

27. He's a liar, and furthermore

he's a killer. Does that sound too extreme? It probably is too much to tell the average voter, so the toned down message would be that Bush has been dishonest with us, and the rest of the world. He never comes clean about stuff until he is forced to by the media, etc. He has ruined this economy with his fuzzy math. He keeps trying to amend the constitution left and right. It appears that mr. bush hates america and americans.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[incapsulated]

26. Your instinct's are correct

You can't have Kerry being all about how much Bush sucks. This will play right into their hands, they will paint him as a whining, negative bitch who doesn't offer any solutions.

He needs to pick his fights carefully, especially now, when he is being "branded" by the media. His image, as it will be sold up until the election, is being formed now. He can't allow himself to be categorized as an attack dog; that is red meat for the base, but he needs the swing voters to win. The base is fine, they don't need to know anything other than he isn't Bush.

[DaveSZ]

30. Yes

I'm tired of all the negativity.

It's a huge turn off.

[woofless]

31. Positive, Schmositive.

That's the way to get GORED. EVERY time the lyin' pukes say something false, misleading or just plain nasty, they must be called on it. We need Kerry Precisely because he won't roll over. The opposition is nervous when we fight back and we need to keep them that way. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Screw'em.

[Mairead]

34. My sense is that people want mostly hope for the future but also

a surrogate expression of anger about the many betrayals of the past. So 90% hope, 10% pointed nastiness, the most pointed of the latter possibly disguised as I-didn't-know-that-mike-was-open 'gaffes'.