Kentucky and National
The endorsements for the Kentucky Senate race in the state papers goes one of two ways. Jim Bunning’s recent behaviour suggests he’s simply losing it, his campaign has done nothing to relieve us of the suggestion, and his opponent is able and not too ideological so as to be good to do the job for Kentucky. OR. This is how Jim Bunning has always behaved.
It’s the “Doldering Aging Eccentric” card. Kind of worked for Strom Thurmond. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina has thrown in the towel because he doesn’t want to become that punchline.
There was to be a Senate debate on “Meet the Press”. Bunning declined.
The strategy bols down to downplaying any suggestion that the race is closing (thus we get comments from the RNC of the DNC spending some money on the race that “they’re welcome to throw their money into a sinkhole”, and thus the “Meet the Press” snub can be cited, cynically, as just below the dignity of a man who’s cruising to victory), laugh off verbal flubbings and clueless remarks to both eccentricities and attacks on as dirty campaigning. Have the Senior Senator pump him up, and have Bunning only perform in the most scripted of matters. (See also the circumstances of how he handled the debate he had to do.)
I note two Bush attacks as of late. (1) What an outrageous claim Kerry makes regarding Tora Bora! (Never mind the newspapers covered the situation back in 2002, not forwarded to critical discussion due to the still smoldering 9/11 afterglow Bush was enjoying.) (2) The Kerry campaign, devoid of forward-seeking ideas on defense matters, has resorted to simply responding to the day’s headlines. Particularly, the headline that tons of high-powered conventional explosives are missing and now likely in the hands of the Iraqi insurgents — something the IAEA warned the Administration to take care of.
Which is just as well. Bush said he doesn’t read the newspapers. Apparently Bush is making clear distinctions between him and Kerry: Kerry does read the newspapers. Jim Bunning, for his part, when asked about the group of national guard soldiers who refused to follow an order that seemed suicidal remarked that he never heard of the incident, and that he doesn’t watch any news except for Fox News. There’s a punchline there, but I don’t know what it is.
I give Fox News more credit than Jim Bunning does. I know they covered the story. How they squared it with the Fox News mandate of glorifying the troops, promoting a uniform “happy warrior” image, and selling the Bush line on supplying needed military equipment I don’t know… beyond, of course, “isolated incident”.