Kerry, Bush Start Debate Preparations

[SpursWoman]

Link (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040927/ap_on_el_pr/kerry_bush_debate)


By MARY DALRYMPLE, Associated Press Writer

MADISON, Wis. - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, arriving Sunday at a remote resort to practice for this week's debate, took a swing at President Bush for pronouncing the Iraqi mission accomplished while the monthly death toll mounts.

"I will never be a president who just says mission accomplished. I will get the mission accomplished," Kerry said to a small group of supporters waiting on the airport tarmac. Bush said, in an interview to be broadcast Monday, that he would not back down from his May 1, 2003, statement on an aircraft carrier declaring major combat operations over under a banner that read "Mission Accomplished."

Kerry was taking a break from nearly nonstop campaign travel to prepare for the debates in a closely divided state that both candidates want to capture.

"It's Wisconsin," said spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter, when asked how the campaign picked the locale. "It's a remote area where we can concentrate and focus and still get out to talk to voters as much as possible."

His debate preparation schedule in Spring Green, Wis., remains flexible, aides said. Kerry plans to some time out on the campaign trail Monday for a town hall-style meeting with local voters. He had one practice debate with sparring partner and friend Greg Craig last weekend in Boston.

In Crawford, Texas, where the president spent about four hours this weekend preparing for the debate, White House communications director Dan Bartlett called Kerry a "seasoned" debater against whom Bush would merely "hold his own." But then Bartlett accused Kerry of taking more than one position on foreign policy issues — the subject of the first debate.

In Washington, Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) Chairman Terry McAuliff called Bush a `great debater," but said the president wins match-ups on "style not substance."

At podiums set up in a conference area of the ranch, Bush practiced a couple hours Saturday and then another two hours Sunday morning. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., played Kerry. Mark McKinnon, media adviser for the Bush-Cheney campaign, was the moderator.

"Obviously, President Bush has had to practice twice as hard to learn all the different positions that John Kerry has taken on the big issues of the day," Bartlett said. "But he's ready to 'hold his own'." where's the tongue-in-cheek emoticon?

The Kerry campaign prepares for the debates with a lesson in mind from 2000, when they believe Republicans successfully portrayed Al Gore as having a tendency to exaggerate, carrying that through the analysis after the debates.

"They won the spin war coming out of that debate," Cutter said.

Kerry's been working to portray Bush as a leader who's repeatedly made bad choices, pointing to the volatile situation in Iraq.

Kerry said Sunday it was "unbelievable" that Bush would "do it all over again and dress up in a flight suit and land on an aircraft carrier and say mission accomplished again."

Bush says in an interview to be aired Monday on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" that he "absolutely" would have repeated the announcement, saying he was saying thanks to the troops.

The Kerry campaign said Sunday it erred when answering a questionnaire for Outdoor Life magazine and said that the Massachusetts senator counts a "Communist Chinese assault rifle" as a favorite gun.

The gun is actually an inoperable single bolt rifle, not an assault weapon, said spokesman David Wade. "The Kerry campaign should have described it as an old military rifle," he said.

The senator also owns a double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun for hunting, aides said.

[SpursWoman]

Link (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040926/pl_nm/campaign_debates_dc)


Debates Give Kerry Last Chance to Make Case

Sun Sep 26, 3:49 PM ET

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When President Bush (news - web sites) and Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) open a series of debates on Thursday, voters will get their first chance to directly compare the White House candidates -- and Kerry will get perhaps his last chance to convince Americans he is up to the job.


After nearly two years of political skirmishing, the side-by-side appearances by Bush and Kerry in three 90-minute nationally televised encounters have the potential to tip a White House race that polls show is close but leaning to Bush.


Polls also show voters have plenty of concerns about both candidates. While a majority of voters in most polls are worried about the direction of the country under Republican Bush, particularly in Iraq (news - web sites) and on the economy, they remain unconvinced Democrat Kerry is the answer.


If the Massachusetts senator is not successful during the debates in erasing lingering doubts about whether he can be a credible alternative to Bush, he will have little hope of doing it before the Nov. 2 election.


"This is Kerry's last chance to make a first impression -- he is still an amorphous figure in a lot of minds," said Alan Schroeder, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston who has written a history of presidential debates.


"Presidential debates can wipe the slate clean -- they usher in the last act of the campaign. They are the last big things that happen before the vote is taken, and in a close race like this they will be crucial," he said.


The television audience will be the largest of the campaign, giving both candidates their best opportunity to court voters who are undecided or might change their minds based on the debates -- as much as one-quarter of the electorate, according to some polls.


"An undecided voter at this stage is someone who knows they don't like the direction Bush is going but is unsure about Kerry, which is why the debates are more critical for Kerry," said Democratic consultant Doug Hattaway, an aide to Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) in 2000.


"The most important thing for Kerry is not to treat it like a debate contest where he gets points for being smart on all the issues and getting jabs in," Hattaway said. "He needs to understand that people need to see what kind of person he is and whether he is confident and strong and credible."


The first debate on Thursday in Coral Gables, Florida, will focus on Iraq and the war on terror -- issues that have dominated the campaign for most of the year and that Kerry has put at the top of his agenda in the last month.


"Getting people to look at these two side by side as potential commanders-in-chief is a real part of what we're going to be doing at that first debate," Kerry spokesman Mike McCurry said.


Bush, meanwhile, will frequently remind viewers and Kerry that he already is the commander-in-chief. While Kerry hopes to trip up Bush and get him off script, the president will aim to stick to his direct campaign message.


DISCIPLINED DEBATER


"Bush will not be tempted to engage in a debate that will impress Washington insiders or debate coaches or the press corps," said Garry Mauro, an Austin, Texas, lawyer who lost his race for governor against Bush in 1998. "He will talk to the American people and he will be as disciplined as any debater you have ever seen."


While presidential debates have rarely been decisive, they can switch momentum or change perceptions. Gore was leading in the polls in 2000 until his loud sighs and supposed misstatements in the first debate became a campaign focus.


"The only way to win a presidential debate is for your opponent to do something dumb," said Republican consultant Dan Schnur. "Kerry is going to try for fireworks and Bush is going to give his stump speech. But the more aggressive Kerry gets, the riskier it gets for him."


The post-debate spin also could be important. Both sides will pounce on any mistakes to fill out the negative picture they have painted of their opponents -- that Kerry is a flip-flopper, or Bush is out of touch and not in command of the facts.

"The Republicans will be on a hair trigger to pounce on Kerry for anything where it looks like he has nuanced a position. That's the trap they are waiting to spring," Hattaway said. On the other hand, Schnur said, "the Democrats will try to catch Bush in a policy misstatement and then blow it out of proportion."

Both sides have worked feverishly to lower expectations, although Bush and Kerry have long and successful debate histories. Bush performed well against Gore and in his Texas governor's races.

Kerry, a member of his prep school debate team and a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Senate, came from behind to win re-election in 1996 after a series of eight memorable debates in Massachusetts with Republican Gov. William Weld.

"Senator Kerry has spent his lifetime preparing for these debates, 20 years in the United States Senate, where you debate," said Bush adviser Karen Hughes. "As president you don't debate. You listen, you make decisions, but you don't engage in debates."

[Nbadan]

"Obviously, President Bush has had to practice twice as hard to learn all the different positions that John Kerry has taken on the big issues of the day," Bartlett said. "But he's ready to 'hold his own'."

It's funny, but the republicans have over-played the nuance card. W. is gonna have to come up with more than just empty rhetoric to hold his own against Kerry.