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Once again, Dubya proves he's a poker master: Devastating tsunami hits, may be the world's worst disaster. This is shaping up to be a moster round of poker. Initial ante is 15 million, Bush immediately raises to 35 million. Everyone wonders, what is he thinking, that's not too big of a raise, he should have come in for more than that - obviously displaying that he has a weak hand. Each country looks at their stack of chips, and decides to join in the game, looking to knock the US out - France jumps in for 42 million, thinking they...

Summary: In his first four years, George W. Bush presided over the most sweeping redesign of U.S. strategy since the days of F.D.R. Over the next four, his basic direction should remain the same: restoring security in a more dangerous world. Some midcourse corrections, however, are overdue. Washington should remember the art of speaking softly and the need for international legitimacy. John Lewis Gaddis is Robert A. Lovett Professor of History at Yale. RECONSIDERATIONS Second terms in the White House open the way for second thoughts. They provide the least awkward moment at which to replace or reshuÛe key advisers....

Sen. John Kerry has fallen into a trap. As the debate in the presidential race shifted from Iraq to domestic issues, driven by the topic chosen for the third debate, the Massachusetts Democrat moved further and further to the left, boasting of a “plan” to save Social Security, another to protect and extend Medicare, a third to cover all Americans with health insurance, and one more to create new jobs and stop outsourcing by American companies. With each new promise, he seemed to one-up by promising ever more generous federal programs. President Bush, meanwhile, lay in the weeds, continuing to...

It's not just President Bush's legacy at stake on Nov. 2 -- it's also Karl Rove's. So campaign cognoscenti are keeping a close eye on the master strategist these next two weeks, furiously mulling two questions. Will Rove's decision to invigorate the base -- at the risk of alienating everyone else -- ultimately make him a hero or a goat? And does he still have something up his sleeve? Traditionally, the furious mulling about Rove is complicated by his insistence on hovering behind the scenes. But Rove is making himself hard to miss these days, giving interviews right and left...

<p>A few months before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Karl Rove held clinics for White House officials in which he laid out what amounted to his early game plan for reelecting President Bush in 2004: improving the party's performance among blacks, Hispanics, Catholics, union households and "wired workers" of the technology world.</p>

Todays CPD has an in-depth article on how Bush and Kerry are working to win the OH electoral votes. Between them, the campaigns are leaving little of the state untouched. They want Ohio's votes badly, so Ohioans will be hearing a lot from the candidates and their surrogates in person, in television ads, in letters and in e-mail... I can certainly vouch for that, but in Warren County my mail is running 10-1 Bush literature. The Bush campaign is confident it can win the state; as if to prove its comfort level, today marks 14 days since the Republican president...

Our strategy is working.. all the MSM polls have Kerry at 80% or higher! Let the rats keep voting and the polls will get to such a number where they are taken down because they're ridiculous

BUSH CAMPAIGN WON COIN TOSS, CHOSE TO SPEAK LAST... Kerry campaign chooses to answer first question...

G.W. Bush's opponents claim that he has been an incompetent leader and decision maker concerning the security of America and America's role in the world. One of the recent reasons they use to back up their thinking is that "Iraq has become a hot bed for terrorist activity." They claim our continued presence there escalates the conflict and validates the hatred of the militant muslims. I say, Wow! What a great strategy. When you want to catch flies, use fly paper. "Swatting at flies" never really solved anything. If the Iraq conflict is drawing foreign terror groups to join in...

From the September 27 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten George W. Bush Debate Strategies." Late Show home page: http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/ 10. Ask the question, "We've never had a horse-faced President so why start now?" 9. Instead of witty retorts, have secret service wrestle Senator Kerry to the ground. 8. Use Kerry's long-winded answers to take much needed bathroom breaks. 7. Hope one of them hurricanes cancels the debate. 6. Instead of water, fill Kerry's mug with Red Bull and vodka. 5. Find time to work in joke prop -- giant waffle. 4. Moving his lips to pretend microphone...

Okay we need to have a thread that covers 2 things.... 1. What are the goals this group want to see in the next 4 years, please include the who, what, where, and HOW, to accomplish those goals. 2. In what ways can the dems. throw road blocks in our way? And What creative road blocks can we set up while they are in a shell shocked daze starting November 3rd?

WASHINGTON - President Bush's political team is orchestrating a vastly larger advertising campaign than thought possible under federal law, taking control of millions in Republican Party funds simply by inserting the phrase "our leaders in Congress" in selected commercials. The GOP strategy had gone unnoticed for weeks by Sen. John Kerry and the Democrats, who now may abandon their own less cost-efficient approach to advertising. Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager, said in an interview that federal election law allows the campaign access to party money "provided that your message is broader than the individual candidate and includes a discussion of...

DERRY — Answering the latest criticism on Iraq from Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry, President George W. Bush again turned Kerry’s own words against him during a re-election campaign forum here. “Today my opponent continued his pattern of twisting in the wind, with new contradictions of his old positions on Iraq,” Bush said to a friendly crowd of about 2,000 at the SportsZone. “He apparently woke up this morning and has now decided, no, we should not have invaded Iraq, after just last month saying he still would have voted for force even knowing everything we know today.” At a...

Political PsyWar – Negative Linking For Jane Fonda & John Kerry... or Flushing The Frenchman With A Phrase. Time for a little PsyWar lesson this evening [Where did you think the radio call MindBender26 came from :~). ] Negative linking is a very powerful tool. The idea is to link the enemy with something very negative. By linking the enemy to a person or thing that inspires negative emotions in the listener/reader, you extend, you transfer, the negative emotions to your enemy. It works especially well in politics. For example, years ago, Rs used it to label Ds very effectively...

How do Republicans continually frustrate Democrats, keeping them on the defensive? It's not just their media control (Fox News, Clear Channel, etc.), it's not just the $2 billion they've put into think tanks over the past 30 years, and it's not just lies and dirty tricks. It's their skill at "framing." Take the term "tax relief," for example. The phrase started appearing in White House press releases on the day President Bush took office, and it has been repeated over and over ever since. But it's what is behind the words -- the mental structure known as a "frame" --...

............ Rob Gray, a Weld adviser who is now advising the Bush team, recalled the day during the 2000 campaign when his colleagues from Washington arrived in Boston to comb through old Kerry records, which they then piled onto a Ryder truck and hauled back to the Republican National Committee headquarters. Kerry at that time was on the short list of candidates to join Al Gore on the Democratic ticket. "That was the first delivery of the Kerry research, which obviously had a lot of flip-flop stuff in it," Gray said. Gray, a longtime Kerry observer, said he early on...

Although almost every argument aginst our president is just about forgotten, every now and then you'll hear someone spout the passe' talking point, to wit: "He (meaning president Bush) got us into this war with no idea as to how to get us out."

NEW YORK - (KRT) - Karl Rove, the Bush campaign mastermind who inspires awe among Republicans and apoplexy among Democrats, sat Monday for a rare conversation with several journalists and laid out his road map to victory. One word: exurbs. The Bush foot soldiers are already on the move, scouring the land for all the Bush-leaning Americans who, without being prompted, would probably not bother to vote at all. And that means launching a thorough invasion of the "exurbs," those brand new stretches of suburbia, beyond the metropolitan areas, where farmland is being rapidly replaced with new malls and churches...

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — If you think President Bush has been in Michigan a lot this summer, you're right.The Republican president made weekly visits to Michigan in July and has been here every other week in August. Bush's third campaign stop of the month comes Monday at Heritage Park in Taylor as he works his way to the Republican National Convention in New York City. Democrat John Kerry has made two campaign visits to Michigan this month, stopping in Taylor — at the same place Bush will be Monday — and Grand Rapids during a two-day swing that was part...