The Republicans have started their campaign to smear Kerry as 'reinventing himself.' (kindly brought up in
this diary earlier)
GOP: Kerry undergoing 'extreme makeover' [CNN]
No big surprises here, but I'm wondering just how much of this will stick on Kerry. They tried with the Flip-Flopper tag, to moderate success, and I'm sure this will be more of the same. But depending on how Kerry plays the coverage of the convention, (or lack thereof) he may be able to pre-empt the thugs.
"We believe that for the next four days, the Democrats are going through an extreme makeover of John Kerry's record," portraying a liberal Massachusetts senator as a moderate presidential candidate, said Republican national chairman Ed Gillespie.
"Senator Kerry's 20-year Senate voting record is a long shadow the Democrats will try to hide with lights, camera and rhetoric this week," Gillespie said. "For one night they may succeed, but Senator Kerry will never be able to shake his voting record between now and November."
And of course, what would a Republican press release on John Kerry be without the mention of the whole 'Massachusetts Liberal' meme?
"I'm very proud of my governor, Governor [Mitt] Romney," she said. "I don't think we'll see Lt. Gov. Kerry standing with Mike Dukakis during the course of this convention."
In the 1988 presidential race, aides to President Bush's father successfully painted Democratic nominee Dukakis as a Massachusetts liberal out of touch with most of America. Republicans want to do the same to Kerry during the current campaign.
I can't believe that the Republicans are still effective with their spin machine. All they do is repeat lies, distortions and catch-phrases over and over and over and over until the public begins to associate them. Can't there be a better way to manipulate people? And, more importantly, even with the press yielding all control to the Bush PR machine, shouldn't there be a better way for the Democrats to counter this?