Atrios links to this AP story:
A Nebraska business executive withdrew from consideration to be President Bush’s point man on manufacturing Thursday after presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry raised questions about his stance on shifting U.S. jobs to foreign countries.The Bush administration said Anthony Raimondo's withdrawal was related to Nebraska political issues and not the flap raised by the Kerry campaign.
But the nomination had appeared in doubt after Kerry's campaign had raised questions of why the Bush administration was picking someone to guide government efforts to halt the hemorrhage of American manufacturing jobs who had laid off 75 of his own workers in 2002 after announcing he was constructing a $3 million plant in China…
The Kerry campaign had no immediate reaction to Raimondo's withdrawal, but earlier Kerry had criticized the appointment of a so-called manufacturing czar "too little, too late" to deal with the current crisis in American manufacturing.
John Kerry was not my first choice for the Democratic nomination. Among my reasons was that I did not perceive Kerry as being tough enough to beat Bush. The last couple of months have changed my mind on that score. As Atrios says, the Kerry campaign is putting Bush on the defensive. That is a good thing and this incident is only one of a number that have convinced me that Kerry is in fact tough enough to win.
Nonetheless, this is going to be a very close election and if Kerry is going to win, he need to bring his “A” game every day. His handling of the nomination of Raimondo was at best a “C+” effort. It was a lost opportunity. If he wants to win, he has to eliminate such mistakes.
The proper way to handle the nomination was to do the research necessary to develop a line of attack on Raimondo and then be silent until Bush had his press conference and announced Raimondo as his choice. At that point, Bush would be committed to Raimondo. Kerry then could open fire with both barrels putting Bush into a much worse position.
Once Bush had announced the nomination, he would either have to back down, thereby looking weak, or absorb the damage of the Kerry attack. By firing too soon, Kerry allowed Bush to have Raimondo withdraw his own nomination and argue that the reason was unrelated to the Kerry attacks.
Before the press conference, the Kerry campaign should have merely said that the hiring of a manufacturing czar was too little, too late. Only after Bush made the announcement should the trap be sprung.
John Kerry is playing in the big leagues now. It is crucial to make the most of the opponent’s mistakes. Patience is hard when you have a good point to make. Nonetheless, part of bringing your “A” game is having the patience to maximize the opportunities created by your opponent's errors.
Dwight, thank you for sharing your insight, enriching as usual.
Posted by: PHK at March 12, 2004 12:41 AMFirst of all, thanks for the blog. Really great
I'm writing because I wonder if the reason that the Kerry campaign publicized it was that they knew that the media had it, and in waiting, Bushco might have been able to withdraw the nomination and deflate the crisis. It's an interesting question in game theory, and I admit it would have been great if a 'trap' could have been set, but I have to think that this is a contest of attrition, so one doesn't wait, one takes every chance to score a point.
Posted by: liberal japonicus at March 12, 2004 06:34 AMI think I agree with liberal japonicus; swinging for a home run at every pitch isn't necessary right now or really worth the risk of a strike out.
(I feel so West Wing, with all these sports references all over the place.)
Posted by: ArC at March 12, 2004 12:20 PMI am, as always, in awe of the cool reason with which you indulge your instinct for the Republican jugular.
applause.
Posted by: julia at March 12, 2004 01:04 PMIt's what you would call premature rejectulation, and it has to stop. Save the big guns for when they are most effective.
Posted by: Mark H at March 13, 2004 12:27 AMYour scenerio is a double plus good, but this still embarassed the Bushistas and made them back down. Kerry has just won the nomination and his campaign staff has barely time to gell, but I think they're doing pretty good against the Bush pros, who have had a dozen years of working together.
Posted by: Mike at March 13, 2004 01:11 AMliberal japonicus:
You may be right, of course. If the nomination was not going forward in any event, the best thing for the Kerry campaign to do was to bank whatever small advantage it could.
If there was even a small chance that the nomonation would go forward, it seems to me better to wait. The advantage gained by attacking early is very a very small, one day, story known only to political junkies.
If you wait, and the trap gets to be sprung, Kerry can add a line to his stump speeach about how GWB cares very much about manufacturing jobs as long as they are in China or India instead of Ohio, Penn, or Nebraska. He then gets to use that line hundreds or even thousands of times.
Straight risk/reward analysis suggests waiting unless the chances of the nomination going forward were very small.
I hate to have my first post here be a disagreement (just found the site thanks to Damfa) but here goes: I think the lightning hit on this outsourcing toad was just GREAT.
Bushco decided on this guy by their usual route: he was a "buddy" of some state politician and had a nice Hispanic-sounding name to boot. Pretty obviously no background checking was done on his "small bidness". So what happens? The name is barely floated in the rumor mill and WHAM the China connection roars to the fore. Not only here in the blogosphere but all over the national press.
Sure, the guy promptly "withdrew from consideration for purely personal reasons" but that act then put the story into a SECOND news cycle, and even Brokaw and Jennings could barely contain a snort at the transparent stupidity of it all. Bush's people looked like cats trying to cover up a turd on a linoleum floor.
The message that was sent is that the Cheating Liars don't have to just concern themselves with getting stuff past the complacent DC press corps any more. WE'RE watching every little tiny move and announcement they make.
We did more than bring down one stinky appointee--now if they try again to name a new, squeaky-clean person to this "post" which was long on symbolism and short on substance to begin with, all they do is drag up the whole issue again.
Short version: If these people can't lie, cheat and steal, they can't do ANYTHING, because that's all they know. If they had brains enough they'd be scared shitless.
Posted by: Xan at March 15, 2004 07:33 PM