Reply #13: Kerry has a lot of strengths vs. Bush, but his single biggest one is in [View All]

the "mythology" of their youthful pasts. Kerry the War Hero who VOLUNTEERED from a position of privilege, vs. Bush, who SLID into his cushy TANG slot using HIS position of privilege and then didn't even show up. The more you think about it, the more powerful it really is.

Rove may be a stupid ass, but he does have balls. He tries to take his enemies biggest strength and neutralize it or even make it a liability. So he purposefully focuses on Kerry stuff from around the Vietnam era to try to get negatives out of that, so that anytime anyone thinks "Kerry/Bush - '70's" they'll think about Jane Fonda or some stupid speech or medal throwing instead of remembering that JK is actually BRAVE and GWB is a CHICKENSHIT. I don't think this strategy worked with the "medal throwing" brouhaha because JK did a good job SLAMMING that one back in their face.

This "make a weakness of your enemy's strength" deal kinda worked with the smears of McCain as some kind of unbalanced stereotypical Nam Vet.