The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008

Would the real John Kerry please stand up? Of course, both versions of his life had truth to them. Whenever Kerry's self-image tried to stand up, it was knocked over by a Freak Show interpretation. Every positive element of Kerry's existence was neutralized or turned into a weakness. Every vulnerability was maximized. By the end, this proud man was lying on the bloodied ice like a freshly clubbed harp seal.

One reason political operatives such as Jim Dyke value Freak Show politics is that it is never entirely clear who is swinging the club. From the average voter's vantage point, the Cristophe item just seemed to materialize. But the purpose and timing of Freak Show attacks are almost never coincidental, and they always landed at inopportune moments for Kerry.

A month after the Cristophe exposure, Kerry took his first trip as a candidate to Iowa. The Republican National Committee researchers again had done their jobs well. They had found a Boston Globe story from 1996 in which Kerry said: "I hate going to places like . . . Dubuque to raise large sums of money. But I have to. I hate it. I detest it." Kerry no doubt did not even remember saying such a thing, or the context in which he said it, but others made it their business to unearth these kinds of statements. Drudge was again the beneficiary of the RNC research. He reported this "breaking news" during an appearance on the Fox News show Hannity & Colmes. The date was January 16, 2003. By design, this was only two days before Kerry was scheduled to make an appearance in Dubuque. Hannity closed his interview by telling Drudge: "It's great for the country that you are out there. And keep giving the elites a tough time." On the Drudge Report, the dispatch quoted an outraged "Dubuque resident Marsha Vittal" who demanded to know where Kerry gets off by claiming he "wants to be my president, but he detests, detests coming to where I've chosen to live my life to ask for my support."

Curiously, the Dubuque Telegraph Herald could not find anyone named Marsha Vittal listed in local phone books, Internet directories, or county voting records. By this point, though, it did not matter whether she existed or not. The Drudge item was dominating advance coverage of Kerry's visit in both the Iowa and the national media. Kerry and his aides were left to brainstorm over how to put the best face on their circumstances. As he stood up before Dubuque Democrats, Kerry said, "I'm thrilled to be here, contrary to all . . ." The next phrase was drowned out as the crowd erupted in laughter.

The Drudge Report may be the leading platform for Freak Show politics, but it is not the only one. Under the right circumstances, even the New York Times can play a role. In April 2003, a Times story by chief political writer Adam Nagourney and White House reporter Dick Stevenson quoted an unnamed Bush adviser commenting on Kerry's appearance. "He looks French," the adviser cracked. Whether a planned insult or a spur-of-the-moment inspiration, it was one of the most ingenious remarks of the entire campaign. It brilliantly combined two Freak Show themes that were central to the Bush case against Kerry. One was that he was an exotic, even feminine, character. The other was that he was a virtual quisling, since the French were the most vocal foreign opponents of Bush's war in Iraq. Nagourney and Stevenson played the dig deep in their story, but it hardly went unnoticed. Teresa Heinz Kerry, the candidate's wife, perhaps did not help her husband's cause the next day when she responded with a shot of her own at White House advisers: "They probably do not even speak French." The Times story showed that one of the Trade Secrets of politics is truer than ever in the new environment: Little things can become big things.

The "looks French" line was picked up on Rush Limbaugh's show. Ann Coulter devoted a column to it. House Republican leader Tom DeLay delighted audiences with his new opening line: "Good afternoon. Or, as John Kerry might say, 'Bonjour!' "

As 2003 stretched on, Kerry faded as a laugh line. But only because his presidential ambitions were similarly fading, under the weight of his own lassitude and disorganization, and in the face of the fleeting rise of Howard Dean. Jim Jordan was sent packing by Kerry; some other staff, startled by the candidate's lack of loyalty and the discord he tolerated on his own team, chose to leave with Jordan. Yet one of Kerry's virtues as a politician had always been an ability to rise to the occasion. In January of 2004, he roared past erstwhile front-runner Dean and a field of others to win the Iowa caucuses, and then the New Hampshire primary. For a flickering moment, people seemed to be viewing Kerry in a new, more favorable light.

The golden light quickly turned harsh again. In mid-January, there had been passing references in the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Herald, and elsewhere to speculation that Kerry was freshening his look through injections of Botox. But this speculation did not ignite until it was highlighted on the Drudge Report on January 28: "New and Improved Kerry Takes New Hampshire." There were before-and-after photographs with analysis of the respective furrows. Kerry and his spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter, both denied that he had received Botox injections. Former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee once described a certain type of especially delicious story: "Too good to check!" Kerry's alleged Botox treatments fell in this category. Whether true or not, it fit so neatly into the existing image of Kerry as a popinjay that the story scurried through the news.

CNBC, MSNBC, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer -- all of them, and lots of others, did Botox stories. Dean, then fighting vainly for a comeback, made a public gibe. The former Vermont governor, who had hardly concealed his dislike for Kerry, laughed aloud in conversations with reporters about the Botox rumor. You know it's true, he roared, throwing his head back in mirth. By March, even Vice President Dick Cheney was joining in the fun. At the Gridiron Dinner, an annual gathering of the Washington Establishment, he joked that the administration had dispatched weapons inspectors to "search for the bio-warfare agents we believe are hidden in Senator Kerry's forehead."

Another Drudge-driven story was not such a laughing matter. On February 12, the Drudge Report posted a "World Exclusive" stating various news outlets were investigating suspicions that Kerry had had an affair with a young woman, and that she had "fled the country, reportedly at the prodding of Kerry." Drudge wrote, accurately, that rival candidate Wes Clark had earlier told reporters, in an off-the-record session, that he believed Kerry's campaign would "implode over an intern issue." (Trade Secret for candidates: Make sure journalists you are speaking with have the same understanding of "off the record" as you do.)

In an earlier era -- after Gary Hart but before Monica Lewinsky -- rumors about a Kerry affair would have prompted editors and producers to hold lengthy, brooding meetings about what to do with the information. These discussions would drag on inconclusively for weeks or months. Reporters would be dispatched to investigate discreetly, and perhaps confront the campaign with the suspicions, but perhaps no story would run, even if the rumor proved true. This essentially took place in 1996 at the Washington Post, where editors debated how to handle the account of Bob Dole's affair in the 1960s, before finally tucking it in a story buried inside the paper.

Kerry's rumored dalliance, as with all such stories in the Internet Age, unfolded in real time. It soon was known to every American with a modem and a discernible interest in politics. On cue, Limbaugh devoted the first hour of his show to the story. Kerry, meanwhile, kept a previous appointment on the Don Imus radio program and, when pressed, said only, "There is nothing more to report." Later in the day he was more emphatic: "It's untrue, period." The denial was widely reported, earning a few lines from ABC's Peter Jennings on that evening's World News Tonight. From Africa, the woman in question, journalist Alexandra Polier, also issued a denial. Polier later traced the story to its apparent source: a former high school acquaintance who was aware that Kerry and Polier had once shared dinner after meeting at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and had wrongly assumed a romance. Polier theorized that the gossiping friend told her boss, who happened to be Republican lobbyist Bill Jarrell. He allegedly gabbed to others, and a rumor was born.