The poll results seem to indicate that Mr. Kerry’s status as someone who is not President Bush is pivotal to his appeal among those who support him. Of those surveyed, 98 percent said they believed that John Kerry was not George Bush, with a scant 2 percent answering “Don’t know.”
Asked to name the issue that concerned them most, 9 percent of Kerry voters named “improving the economy,” 12 percent named “fighting terrorism,” and a whopping 79percent named “electing someone who is not George Bush.”
“With weeks to go until our convention, it’s significant that so many voters already believe that John Kerry is not George Bush,” said Kerry strategist Bob Shrum. “Once our ad buys get underway, we expect the number of people believing John Kerry is not George Bush will only increase.”
Perhaps in response to the poll results, the Bush campaign today responded with a series of ads intended to plant seeds of doubt in the voters’ minds about whether or not John Kerry is, in fact, not George Bush.
Emphasizing that both men went to Yale and were members of the secret society Skull and Bones, the new ads end with an announcer saying, “John Kerry: maybe he is George Bush.”
Libby McCleod, a Kerry supporter in the battleground state of Ohio, said she was “troubled” by the ad and was now considering voting for Ralph Nader: “He’s still not Bush, right?”
