Tuesday, February 17, 2004

NOW IT'S PERSONAL

On election night, no matter how bitter the campaign, a rule of etiquette is usually respected that candidates wait their turn to speak on television — and most importantly, they don't step on each other's precious broadcast time. Think John Kerry is scared by John Edwards' showing in Wisconsin? He just walked onto stage about one minute after Edwards, forcing all the cable nets that were covering the speeches live to switch over to him. Edwards, who had barely started his Tower Automotive riff, must be steaming. Interns are nothing. To insiders, this is ugly politics indeed.

UPDATE: In comments, a correspondent notes that bigfooting on an opponents' TV time has precedence in Massachusetts politics, specifically the 1990 gubernatorial primary between Frank Bellotti and John Silber. "There is no doubt in my mind that Senator Kerry watched Silber give Bellotti the elbow, chuckled, and filed it away for future reference," our Bay State political historian writes.

Posted by The Editor at 10:24 PM | Comments (8)

AT LONG LAST, KERRY RENOUNCES 'PHOTO OPS'

Thank goodness John Kerry is finally taking President Bush to task for his shameless use of "photo opportunities."

Kerry is sooo above goofy stunts just to get a picture in the paper.

As far as wire stories go, it doesn't get much snarkier than this graf from Reuters: "'This is not a time for photo opportunities, it is a time to create real opportunities in America,' he said earlier at a town hall meeting at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau after touring a laboratory and posing for photographs with a 40-pound (18 kg) aluminum slab into which a computer-control machine tool etched 'Wisconsin Backs Kerry in 2004.'"

Posted by The Editor at 04:14 AM | Comments (7)