Where Kerry Went Wrong, And My Predictions For The Next Two Weeks

Marsden: The Pre-Mortem: Where John Kerry Went Wrong
I found a very nice article which outlines some of Kerry's problems (though I did a similar article before Bush's GOP convention speech, just for the sake of bragging). I'll quote the good parts:

As any political strategist will tell you, messaging is everything in political campaigns. It’s the candidate who gets his message out there in front first -- who sticks to it and keeps hammering away at it -- that will ultimately win the race.

In the George W. Bush vs. John Kerry match-up, one campaign has stuck to consistent, clear messaging, while the other is still very much trying to find itself. And that is precisely why this political strategist is predicting a victory for President George W. Bush on November 2nd.
...
Certain key themes dominated the Republican National Convention: safety, security, leadership, integrity, compassion. Every example and anecdote presented by the various speakers served to illustrate one of these notions. By the time Bush took the stage himself, each one had already been driven home repeatedly. He didn’t have to explain what he stood for, because the consistent messaging throughout the entire four-day TV advertisement had already taken care of that for him.
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I have no idea whose brainchild it was to have Kerry base so much of his campaign on four months’ worth of military service, but the issue seems to register lower on the Richter scale than filmmaker Michael Moore doing a set of jumping jacks. Service to one’s country is to be highly commended, but it certainly doesn’t translate into election wins. If it did, Kerry wouldn’t be standing there representing his party in the first place--Democratic primary candidate and decorated former General Wesley Clark would be. George H.W. Bush was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces during WWII, and he was beaten in 1992 by draft-dodger Bill Clinton.
...

underlining done by me, just to note a point that I made earlier, and to reiterate a bit.

My post is here. So far, Bush hasn't entirely set his base loose, but it is becoming more active. Also, the Kerry camp (though not Kerry himself) has started talking about some actual issues, such as healthcare. That healthcare plan was successfully destroyed by the fact that it would cost about $1.5 trillion, and that argument was ready before the Kerryites even mentioned healthcare.
Still, I do not believe Kerry himself has said one thing about the future. The man is like a History Channel DVD.


There are three questions that only time will answer:
1: When will Kerry talk about the issues, if he ever does?
2: How much farther will Kerry fall in the polls until he advocates his real message?
3: Can Kerry recover and get somewhat decent results in the election (even though he will likely lose)?

My predictions: 1: two weeks until Kerry really gets to the issues, maybe three (any longer would be complete suicide). 2: somewhere between 4 and 8 points, unless he magically presents his message to a ton of American voters and makes them believe it (which he can't do, because he's not very convincing). I must admit, however, that I am under the impression that Kerry can’t drop much more from his lack of proposals, at least over the short term. 3: Kerry is likely to lose by 5% to 8% of the popular vote in the election if he neither crashes terribly nor pulls off a miracle in these last few weeks.
Kerry needs to have the issues ready before the debates, or his campaign will pretty much crash on national TV. The first debate is September 30th (the vice-prez debate is October 5th), the second is October 8th, and the last is October 13th.

The most interesting debates may be the September 30th and the vice debate. Naturally, the first debate will show what each candidate has to offer, and Bush has a specialty in communicating with the average voter, while Kerry is more agonizing (at least to me). The Vice debate may be the very opposite; Cheney is smart, but not a good speaker, while Edwards seems very presentable (but has very little experience and may not reach expectations).
Bush should be ready to point out an occasional flip-flop and point out the BS in some of Kerry's plans. Kerry, on the other hand, will be somewhat unprepared to challenge Bush's goals without resorting to criticism or overused rhetoric ("rhetoric" as in slogans, circular logic, plans that have no chance for success, ect.).