Posted on 11/30/2004 11:38:53 AM PST by dukeman
George W. Bush ran the most negative presidential campaign in history, and the media never covered the story, an aide to Sen. John Kerry's campaign said last Monday at the journalism department.
Marco Trbovich, a United Steelworkers of America employee who advised Kerry on labor policy, told the 20 students gathered at Carter Hall that about 80 percent of Bush's campaign money was spent on negative advertising.
"If you can think of a few positive commercials that you saw, you saw all of them that were there," he said.
Bush's campaign played upon fear, using patriotic and religious fervor to make voters fear Kerry and the changes he might bring, Trbovich said.
"The Bush strategy worked, creating a big question mark over John Kerry's ability to lead," he said.
Trbovich, who spoke as part of the journalism department's "brown bag" lecture series, singled out two campaign phenomena that he said the media covered particularly poorly: a Bush ad about Kerry's health care plan that Trbovich called completely false, and the months-long smear campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which claimed, among other things, that Kerry faked injuries in Vietnam.
"The Kerry campaign didn't act fast enough because it wasn't cynical enough about the media [to think] that controversy was more important than context," said Trbovich, who has reported for United Press International, the Detroit Free Press and The Boston Phoenix, among other news organizations.
"I think [Bush strategist Karl] Rove is appropriately cynical about the quality -- or lack of it -- in the American media these days," he said.
Trbovich also credited Rove for successfully enlarging the base of the Republican Party, something he said his own party failed to do. He was particularly disappointed in the Democrats' failure to reach blue-collar workers.
"We had a very yuppified campaign," he said, citing as an example Kerry's five speechwriters, all of whom were Harvard University graduates and were under 30. "I could never convince those people that the privatization of Social Security was a big issue."
He also said labor had been marginalized, adding, "There's a kind of elitism to the Democratic Party."
Trbovich has known Kerry for more than 30 years, he said, and even worked as communications director of Kerry's failed 1972 congressional campaign. He said the Massachusetts senator has more integrity and intelligence than almost anyone else he knows. He added, however, that unlike Bill Clinton, Kerry's intellect is at stronger than his political ear.
"Excuse my language, but you've literally got to beat the shit out of John Kerry sometimes to get him where you want him to go," he said. •
So I guess in 2008 we'll see a few community college grads writing speeches for the Dem campaign?
The losers always have excuses.
BOO-HOO!
Alternate universe?
Release your service record, Kerry.
More whining from the looney left. Also, no mention of all the mudslinging that went on from their side - naturally.
Those that live in glass houses.......
Wait just a doggone minute! Bush ran a negative campaign and sKerry didn't. What a crock! Everytime I saw a sKerry ad (I tried not to see any at all) it was negative. Same old ploy from the liberal leftist demoncRATS--"everyone else is wrong and bad but us" mentality.
"Bush knew about 9/11"
"When Clinton lied, nobody died."
"Bush concocted a war in Texas, and killed US soldiers for oil"
"Bush was AWOL, and we have fake documents to prove it."
Sounds like the most positive political attacks in history, don't you think?
Proving once again that having intellect does not mean that you have common sense.
The labor boys are always thowing rocks at their opposition and complaining when someone throws one back.
BTW...I bet that boy has never worked one day inside a steel mill. He's a paid soft handed flack probably on a cushy contract with a buddy or relative in the union hierarchy.
I'll wager you're not far from the truth!
Not that the media didn't try to say the campaigns were negative on both sides.......but we knew better!!!
Ha! The Kerry campaign thought that because they had the old media in their pocket, that would be enough! NOT!
--==((Huuuurl))==--
...and so the myth begins...
Screw these people! Bush was attacked without mercy from the 2000 election until the 2004 election and he remained positive and friendly for about the first two-and-a-half years and only then he spoke out against the obstructionists in the Senate who were holding up his judicial nominees. Once sKerry had the Dummycrap nomination wrapped up, he went virulently negative on Bush on a daily basis for at least four weeks and maybe as many as eight weeks without any response from Bush. When Bush finally responded to 4-8 weeks of negative campaigning by sKerry, sKerry went ballistic, accusing Bush of going negative. Screw all these losers.
Man, November has been a GREAT month, hasn't it?
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