WaPo story covering the Kerry counter-attack includes:
"We're going to be very aggressive throughout the fall in painting the real picture of George Bush," communications director Stephanie Cutter said of the new spots. "We are going to remind voters of what George Bush said in 2000 and what he did. It is a much more aggressive stance."
Interesting that it seems the Kerry kids may be employing the Ackbar Defense (walking into a trap) on this as well as the Vietnam thing. By focusingon on Bush's 2000 campaign record, it is a way to subconcsiously keep the focus on the pre-/post-9/11 world. I think this will be another way to allow Bush to keep hammering on the notion that the Kerry campaign is a 9/10 campaign.
That sneaky Rove guy - selling his opponents rope to hang themselves with.
The interesting bit, is that this was by no means an inevitable trap.
Had Kerry been spectacularly clever (although it is doubtful he could have won the primaries), he could have side-stepped the whole thing by voting for the $87 billion appropriations package. From there he can skip the vast majority of his record on defense by simply saying that was a September 10th world. He could have even strengthened his position by noting his calls for war during the 1998 Iraq crisis.
Instead, by running on his Vietnam record (and by hammering Bush on his TANG service), he's laid open the entirety of his Senate record open to inspection. Furthermore, in so doing, he gives the Republican Party a great chance to brand him as a September 10th guy.
UPDATE...
Or as an alternate, if he had voted for the $87 billion, he could have still trotted out the Vietnam service to bolster his record by asserting that much like the personal danger he faced in Vietnam, he understands intuitively, the danger facing America.
But, in damaging his current voting record, he can't focus on the today, and then eacerbated this by highlighting the past.
If my read is correct, this was pretty darned slick.