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Reading this book now which has been out for a few years, but finding it very interesting. In the chapter discussing his run against Ann Richards, the strategy of drawing the opponent into a negative campaign and then attempting to use it againt him or her is described.
"Many nervous and influential Republicans were questioning why Bush (stilll six to 10 percentage points behind in the polls) rarely attempted to engage Richards directly, using surrogate speakers or news releases in political campaign attacks on his opponent. The advantage of speaking through a surrogate," claimed one Bush campaign staff insider "was that we could say sulfurous things about our opponent and put that on record without our candidate taking personal responsibility for it." (p 126)
What did Bush do when Ann Richards fought back in a negative way? He LIED " When Bush complained that the ads were false and Richards was trying 'to demean me personally' by referring to him as 'that young Bush boy' the governor told the press 'I expect my campaign to respond strongly any time my opponent engages in negative campaigning. To do anyting less would allow the Bush campaign to distort the positive strides that have been made in Texas' p 133
***** Two things about this. One is that Kerry may be letting 'George Bush-I approved this ad' be the one that is shown to be Negative Campaigner while he runs a clean and positive campaign. Does this mean that we could not act, on our own, as surrogates in our own local communities, through newspaper articles, ads, letters, etc to get out the truth? Yes, just as Bush does, as his strategy.
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