Tucker Eskew

Red Sox Nation for Bush

>>SCHILLING: tell everybody to vote and vote Bush next week. <<

So, the man was great on GMA and in G a m e.

Live By The Times, Die By The Times

My wife and I are movie buffs, and we used to rely on the advice of one particular New York Times critic, a superb reviewer who turned her talents to books a couple years ago.

John Kerry's flailing and now failing attempts to ride to the White House on a single, weak news story remind me of a favorite New Yorker cartoon (yes, we subscribe, but the politics are just awful...).

Wife to disappointed movie-goer leaving theater: "Live by Janet Maslin, die by Janet Maslin."

So, Kerry finds himself in suspended indignation, especially today after news, news, and opinion that demonstrate he looked before he leapt.

Faced with these doubts, Kamp Kerry will, I predict, maintain certitude - the kind it displays whenever news is bad and disdains whenever there is good news about America under the President.

Live by the Times, die by the Times....

New Hampshire Morning

The campaign's surrogate team is all over talk radio, thanks to BC04's aggressive operation to spread the word. One example: I'm going on New Hampshire's WGIR-AM in a few minutes to chat with Charlie Sherman. Are they Sox-crazy? Shouldn't they be? What a great story (even though I'm an NL guy)...More later today - I'm speaking on a panel of very insidery (and fine) Washingtonians. I'll fill you in shortly.

And Coming Up Next...

I'll be on Buchanan, er, Scarborough Country on MSNBC here in a few minutes, opposite Dee Dee Myers. Did the interview earlier today from inside the War Room at campaign HQ.

I ran the "war room" at Reagan-Bush '84, before anyone called it that...We actually Xeroxed and collated news articles (to monitor media coverage, i.e. newspapers, back then, "cut 'n' paste" was a literal exercise, as was copying)...it took us all day to do what the Warriors at BC04 do in a few minutes. They're a great group of googling monkeys, as those ABC Note-wags would say...

Hate To Say I Told You So...

...All Right...

>>if you throw out your campaign playbook for the day because of one headline, better make sure it's gonna hold up. <<

The Associated Press tonight lays further waste to the Kerry Kamp's media-manufactured-message of the moment...

I'm stunned the Other Side wants to keep talking about Iraq. It plays into the President's strongest suit among undecided voters... Without it to talk about, what would the Kerry message be right now? I guess there's plenty of negative reporting about the President to choose from, but those headlines still don't comprise a compelling case to replace a strong leader in a time of war.

"Why is it even close?"

Reporters and supporters alike ask me that question.

Why is it even close if George W. Bush is the visionary, positive, successful, bold, and strong leader his supporters say he is?

Why is he so "polarizing?" they want to know.

I don't have time now to share with you all my thoughts on this question, but the simplest answer is that greatness doesn't always translate into popularity, especially in the short-term. And the leaders I immediately think of as great were polarizing figures: Lincoln, Churchill, Reagan, and Thatcher to name a few.

Some of them enjoyed re-election, some didn't. With war ongoing and an opponent who can't close the sale, we're headed toward victory for a great leader.

Me and Zell's Buddy Chris

Just finished Hardball. Matthews thinks we're going to win. Me, too.

The discussion was heavy on strategy, light on policy. But I enjoyed it. I attributed the President's ultimate victory, when asked for a one-word reason, to his vision.

Hardblog

Let's play Hardball.

I'm on tonight, and coincidentally it's the first time I've been on-set there since the host called me Tucker Carlson and Carter Eskew. Maybe tonight he'll call my Kerry Kounterpart "Tad Friend."

Housekeeping Note

A reader suggested yesterday that I turn on the 'trackback' feature. Sounds like a good idea - like this entire experiment, I'll give it a try.

Ohhhh. That's Gonna Leave a Mark.

NBC News reports tonight that one of their embedded crews was with the 101st when it entered the Al Qaqqaa facility reported to contain the 380 tons of weapons -- the weapons whose presence within Iraq would seem to confirm the nature of Saddam's threat, but whose disappearance was blamed solely by Kerry on the man in the Oval. Turns out, our troops (and NBC) took the facility the day after the liberation of Iraq on 4/9/03, and voila! The weapons weren't there when the military arrived.

Our troops were on top of the site from the start and the material in question wasn't there.

So, lesson seems to be, if you throw out your campaign playbook for the day because of one headline, better make sure it's gonna hold up.

Nice to see the news cycle contain some self-correction within the Big Media, making John Kerry’s latest ripped from the headlines attack exceptionally wrong, typically opportunistic, and unusually revealing. His apparent joy (masked as false sorrow and blame-laying) at the bad news will fade. His hopes for another change-of-subject news cycle will not.