Mary Beth Cahill, campaign manager for Sen. John Kerry, says that she underestimated the effectiveness of the Swift Boat Veterans. This is her CYA move.
The Swift Boat Vets' ads got a lot of attention. From the start, it was Mary Beth Cahill who first came out denouncing them and their ad. That was when the ad only ran in 3 states, with the $150,000 they had. She neglected to 'admit' that it was herself who called attention to this ad, which was then run over and over on the news networks. Well, not all the news networks, only the cable news networks. They were banished from the CBS, NBS, and ABS networks. Never saw the ads there. Maybe if she had not called attention to it like she did, the ad would not have received the national attention it got?
Ms. Cahill would characterize it as her simply underestimating their effectiveness. What she didn't admit was that her strategy of isolating her candidate from them was her first and probably biggest mistake. Kerry never once himself addressed the SBV's claims, nor was he ever asked about it by any media to whom he would speak. Everybody, except Mary, wanted to hear Kerry's response. You know, from the war hero who wanted to be Commander In Chief. He was mute to their claims. His surrogates merely discounted them as a bunch of drunks and some such other form of low-life.
Her second and probably next biggest mistake, was the way she never thought of her democrat constituency and what they might have thought of this strategy. Fact was, some of those vets were democrats. And Sen. Kerry and his 'band of brothers' weren't the only Vietnam Veterans in the country. She presumed, or subsumed, that democrats had no need to know anything more about the Swift Boat Vets, and even less about how the candidate himself feels about them.
This write-off of what became an important issue in the campaign by the Kerry Campaign was IMHO a figurative slap in the face to every democrat who was to the right of moveon.org and the Soros gang, which was a large enough constituency to matter.
You see that the arrogance in the campaign against her opponent was, in a way, spread equally over voters in her own party.
Great Job Mary Beth!
Cahill Admits Underestimating Ads' Impact (AP). AP - The campaign manager for Sen. John Kerry's failed presidential bid said Wednesday she regrets underestimating the impact of an attack advertisement that questioned Kerry's Vietnam War record. [Yahoo! News: Politics]
