It’s interesting to note that with days of Susan Estrich’s call for the Democrats to get dirty, you have people like Christopher Dodd and Bob Graham coming out to publicly state that Kerry needs to develop themes, address issues and drop Viet Nam. What they did not call for is for the Kerry campaign to follow Estrich’s advice.

It is also interesting to note that Dodd and Graham are successful politicians who have, for the most, completely ignored Kerry and his campaign up to this point. For them to be suddenly offering advice indicates to me that they are signalling to Kerry that they do not want and will not endorse the kind of strategy Estrich is calling for.

At a different time, and under different circumstances, going after a candidate with allegations of abortions and drunk driving and the rest could actually work. But this is neither the time or the circumstance. To come out with this on the heels of a major voter shift to the opposition simply comes across a pure desperation, and coupled with the fact that these ‘relevations’ are emerging now on a sitting President simply reinforces that arua of panic.

I’m guessing that you will see more Democrats coming out over the next week urging Kerry to clarify his positions and develop an issues-oriented theme. I don’t think any of them care about Kerry or his campaign, but a veering towards serious sleeze could negatively effect other races…Senate, House and state-wide…and that is what pros like Dodd would be worried about.

It will also be interesting to see if Estrich does any backtracking on this…I cannot imagine that she hasn’t received a few calls, from people like Chris Dodd, telling her to shut the f**k up.