| It’s time to implement the Kitchen Sink Strategy—let’s throw everything we have at Kerry Healey and drive her already pathetic favorable/unfavorables into the septic tank. She will tear Deval apart and we'll rear her apart. Her negatives are a lot higher than ours and Deval has a softer cushion with his high favorables.(Call it the scorched earth strategy or whatever—you get my point.) We all know the list is long and does not bear repeating—just peruse Charley’s writings for some ideas. (BTW Charley, I caught your last minute on WTTK this afternoon—great stuff.)
I understand folks will have lots of reasons not to do this—Deval being the first because it’s not his style (which was one of the minor reason’s I choose not to support him in the primary—politics IS a blood sport, I once told him in a brief conversation and the Republicans will tear you apart.)
To those of you who think my suggestion is a bad idea, I offer up two points: Michael Dukakis/Willie Horton and John Kerry/Swift Boats Veterans. Sure Deval has a 20 to 25 point lead. But are Democrats so stupid that we need a 10 point slide in the polls before we realize that we’re hemorrhaging?
Our choices are fairly limited here. WHEN (no if here) Healey blasts Deval as a liar who can not be trusted (with your money, on crime, on taxes…), Deval has only a few choices. He can whine about negative attacks—we saw where that got him in the second debate during the primary. He can spend $3 million in advertising apologizing and explaining the situation—and make this a photo finish race and go down in the history books next to the ’77 Red Sox.
Or Deval can show folks he is tough and is a fighter and do to Kerry as she WILL BE doing to him. Yes, it is as simple as that. Sure this will run counter to the “nice” Deval that he’s been portraying in his recent ads and his speeches during the last year. OK, he’ll take a hit on that—but that’s all insider stuff. The swing voter won’t be paying attention.
The next 4 weeks will not be pretty. Some folks will think a rope-a-dope strategy with a 25 point lead will work and we should lay-low. That may have worked once for Ali, but I’ve seen to many Massachusetts Dems try it and lose.
Me, I say ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK |
