Know Your Enemy

The CW is that Bush has made the pivot to a pure negative end-game.  With a little thought it is easil to predicte what the focus of the new negative onslaught will be.

• Taxes - Bush thinks his tax cuts are one of his strengths. Joe Sixpack got $$ back from the government and Bush thinks that will buy votes.  It appeals to his base and shows him to be staying the course.  As part of this he'll attack Kerry's proposed spending and ask how Kerry plans to pay for it all.  He telegraphed this clearly in the last debate.

  Counterattack - The tax cuts went to those making over $200K is OK but Joe Sixpack will remember that he did see some money come his way.  Counter that by asking about his other taxes like medical costs, cuts in local schools and services, increases in local government taxes and cost of services.  Tie them back to the Federal tax cuts.  Nothing is free.  As far as the "tax gap" goes we need to point out that George Bush has destroyed the economy and that we will rebuild it.  Use a page out of their playbook... as the economy grows so will the tax base.  Soaking the base and getting the tax cut back from them will only go so far and has been used already.  We need to get past that.

• $87 million vote on Iraq - Face it, Kerry hasn't killed this meme yet and it makes for a good zinger from Bush. Every time they open their mouths this attack comes out.  It works.  Kerry did well starting to address it in the last debate but it needs to finally be put to bed.

  Counterattack - Too many zingers, replies, and come-backs have been mentioned in these Diaries for me to offer one here.  What it all boils down to though is the issue has to be addressed.  It is coming... plan for it... kill it. Kerry hasn't spent a concerted effort to kill it yet.  The argument of "my position has always been consistent" went a long way towards that but it was competing with seven months of Bush's repetition of "flip-flop."  Keep hammering the consistency theme.

• Medicare - On its surface the new Medicare bill makes Bush look good.  It is one of their "successes." Only us wonks know the internals and what a knife in the back it really is to the elderly.  The swing voters are persuadable by this argument.

  counterattack - Repeat Edward's riff from the second debate about Bush's choices and how he always chooses big Pharma or Big business and never with the little guy. I loved that and it must have hit home with the swing voters.

• War on Terror (not Iraq) - New polls show that we're making progress splitting Iraq away from WoT and scoring better on Iraq, but Bush still hold a strong lead on WoT and security. With security remaining his last strength Bush will cower behind it.

  Counterattack - OK folks, more taking the opponent's playbook here.  We have to (I hat to say this) appeal to fear.  We have to make people afraid to vote for Bush.  Kerry needs a Edwards-like riff on a long list of items saying Bush did blah and people may die because of it.  Bush didn't do blah and people may die because of it....  you get the point.
  

The attack is coming folks. Do we sit in our bunkers and wait out the barrage or do we climb over the lip of the trench and charge? Your choice?