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Old 09-02-2004, 12:18 PM   #5 (permalink)
smooth
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Location: Right here
Quote:
Originally Posted by honestchipmunk
This is my first real post. It hurts a little bit, but generally it feels good...

So I took my university's PS 1 back two years ago when I was a freshman and my professor explained how election politics work in such simplicity that I have to repeat his view here.
He told us that running for an office is all about staying on your message in what you talk about to people and the press, whatever it is: bombing terrorists, loving babies, kicking homeless people, whatever. The idea is to get your opponent off his message and make him have to spend his time explaining irrelevant things. While he or she is explaining the irrelevant thing, you get to hammer in your message with the people. Thus the image that comes off is that you look like a candidate for your office while the other person can't stop talking about and explaining things that don't really matter.
Clearly, this applies to the current election.
Now, what I don't understand is that if this information was available to me in a lower division PS 1 class, WHY DOESN'T KERRY'S CAMPAIGN ADVISORS KNOW ABOUT IT? It makes no sense. He just keeps talking about Vietnam and blah blah blah. All the while Bush gets to talk about policy and what he's going to do with the next four years.
Yuck.
I say: Bartlet in '04! (Not really, but that would be cool, wouldn't it?)
What you said is similar to what many intelligent anaylists are criticizing Kerry for right now. My hunch is that the din is too loud for him to do anything else, Bush campaign just has too much money to ignore the shots--they are (or will become even morese) overwhelming.

But maybe you can direct your Q to the campaign and post their answer--I really am curious and your professor seems to have pointed something out that might lend us some insight. Maybe he can explain his position more fully if you drop him an email, too.
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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman
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