SLEIGHT OF HAND.

When did it become de rigeur for national-level politicians to explain their strategies in public? I wonder this because it appears to have become the S.O.P. for the Bush campaign. In mid-summer, chief strategist Matthew Dowd let everyone who would listen know that the campaign expected John Kerry to have a 15-point lead coming out of the convention. This was ridiculous, frankly, and everyone with half a clue knew it, but setting the expectations high may have fueled the mini-story that there was "no convention bounce."

Lately, a couple more odd pieces of the GOP playbook have become part of the public record. First, Dowd has revealed that the Bush campaign will stop targeting swing voters.

But the Bush campaign's strategy is focused much more on the possibility that the race will be decided primarily by mobilizing the party faithful in closely fought states, not persuading swing voters.

"Motivating Republicans this year is as important, or possibly more important, than reaching the persuadable voters," said Matthew Dowd, the Bush campaign's chief strategist.

Indeed, Dowd said one of the campaign's top goals is to ensure that Republicans cast as large a share of November's vote as Democrats. Typically, Democrats outnumber Republicans in presidential elections.

What? In an election that's been polling within or nearly within the MOE for six months? In a situation where your guy needs to pick up votes to add to 2000's second-place finish? If this were actually true, they'd know that they'd be better off closing up shop, conceding the race and saving their warchest for whatever yahoo the Republican establishment decides to push in 2008. If Bush loses the "independent vote," even by a little, he loses the election. There are simply not enough Republicans in the country to overcome that. If this is truly the Bush campaign's strategy, it means they're expecting that John Kerry will win close to 60% of the popular vote. So, obviously, this is not the Bush campaign's strategy. True, they continue to run invitation-only, loyalty-oath-obligating rallies, but those aren't for the voters on the ground, they're for the voters at home. Everything about the Bush Administration has been made for TV, and these rallies are no exception. Now, it's true that they don't really know how to target undecided voters beyond offering them advances on their tax returns and telling them they're about to get blown up, but that's a failure of execution, not design.

Meanwhile, Republicans are very publicly planning to link any violent demonstrations at the GOP Convention with the Democratic Party.

Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

This one I don't get. It's true that if things get out of hand in the streets of New York it will probably help Bush, so why risk opening yourself up by making claims that everyone knows are patently false? The Democratic Party is going to stay as far away from the protesters as possible, precisely because street violence will help Bush and because, to be honest, why protest a convention where it's so likely that Bush will just continue shooting himself in the foot? After all, they've already told us that the point of the convention is to make fun of John Kerry, which is only going to highlight the fecklessly negative campaign they've run from the start.

I've long believed that Karl Rove's political vision is the equivalent of John Gotti's entrepreneurial genius. I still stand by that. He's a thug, and not a particularly original one. It'll be interesting to see if Republicans find the time in their next four years off to relearn the art of subtlety.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra ::: 2004:08:24:09:55