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The Morning Grind / DayAhead |
Catching up is hard to do
By John Mercurio
CNN Political Unit
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VIDEO
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CNN's Soledad O'Brien talks with Karen Hughes about criticism of the Bush-Cheney ads.
CNN's Howard Kurtz analyzes President Bush's new campaign ads.
CNN's John King on how the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign is off and running.
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| UPCOMING PRIMARIES |
• Tuesday, March 9: Primaries in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas • Sunday, March 14: Nevada county caucuses • Tuesday, March 16: Illinois primary • Saturday, March 20: Wyoming and Alaska Democratic caucuses When is your primary? For more key dates in the 2004 election season, see our special America Votes 2004 Election Calendar |
SPECIAL REPORT
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Forgive the Republicans if they appear a little flat-footed at the moment. But what political observers witnessed Thursday, and are sure to see more of this weekend, is a Democratic Party, well-primed after a year of trench warfare, that's running circles around the party in power. At least, for now. Here are some examples:
Exhibit A
Before most Americans had ever viewed one of President Bush's new TV ads Thursday, Democrats had blanketed the airwaves, rebuking Bush for using September 11 imagery in the spots.
Some family members of people killed in the terrorist attacks also objected to the use of images from the tragedy in the ads. But other victims' families said they see nothing wrong with the ads.
Bush adviser Karen Hughes tried in vain to fend off attacks Thursday morning, and the Bush-Cheney campaign got some backing Thursday night from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuiliani, who released a brief statement praising president's "steady, consistent and principled leadership" and saying his leadership "on that day is central to his record."
But it just felt like too little, and it was definitely too late. Most major Democrats already had weighed in against Bush, including a firefighters' union, one of Sen. John Kerry's strongest backers.
It's not like the Bush-Cheney campaign didn't anticipate the criticism. When Vince Morris of the New York Post asked Bush aides about the ads' 9/11 imagery at a news conference Wednesday morning, campaign manager Ken Mehlman literally read prepared remarks from a notepad, defending the move and accusing Democrats of having played 9/11 politics for months.
Exhibit B
Democrats are having a field day with comments they say Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, made last week at a local GOP gathering in his district.
Cole denies he ever said that a vote against Bush was the political equivalent of voting for Adolf Hitler, saying local new reports improperly characterized his remarks.
He said Osama bin Laden would draw comfort from Bush's defeat and that a vote against Bush could represent a weakening of American resolve to defeat terrorism.
The congressman went on to say, "What do you think Hitler would have thought if Roosevelt would have lost the election in 1944? He would have thought American resolve was [weakening]."
It's a potentially debatable point. But as far as the Grind can surmise, Cole did not liken Kerry to Hitler.
But House Democratic leaders came charging out of the gates spoiling for a fight.
First up was Rep. Bob Matsui of California, chairman of the House Democratic campaign committee, who called Cole's comments "disgraceful" and "gutter politics" and said they "must be repudiated by Republican candidates from President Bush on down the ticket."
Matsui, generally a mild-mannered fellow, then broadened his assault to the entire GOP, saying the party's "continuing attempt to politicize the 9/11 tragedy is an insult to the victims' families and our entire nation."
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland was next, releasing a statement saying Cole's remarks were "completely outrageous, wrong and should be repudiated."
For his part, Cole was undaunted. During an interview Thursday on CNN's "Inside Politics," he told Judy Woodruff that he had nothing to apologize for and that Democrats had been brutal to Bush during the campaign.
"Frankly, I think the president is owed an apology to the pounding he's gotten in the course of this," Cole said. "His service to the country has been questioned. His leadership's been questioned. People have said he lied about things to the American people, misled them into war, manipulated them. [If] anybody deserves to be apologized to, it's George Bush."
Exhibit C
Now on to Friday, when Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts is expected to deliver another stemwinder criticizing the Bush administration's policy on Iraq. In a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, the senator will address the administration's alleged abuse of intelligence on Iraq, aides said.
Kennedy will say the country is "engaged in a major ongoing debate about why America went to war in Iraq, when Iraq was not an imminent threat, had no nuclear weapons, no persuasive links to al Qaeda, no connection to the terrorist attacks of September 11 and no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," according to an advance copy of the senator's speech.
"Tragically, in making the decision to go to war in Iraq, the Bush administration allowed its wishes, its inclinations and its passions to alter the state of facts and the evidence of the threat we faced from Iraq," Kennedy will say.
The senator will accuse Bush of rushing to war with political motivations, allegations the administration has vehemently denied.
"Why would the administration go to such lengths to go to war? Was it trying to change the subject from its failed economic policy, the corporate scandals and its failed effort to capture Osama bin Laden? The only imminent threat was the [2002] congressional election. The politics of the election trumped the stubborn facts."
