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There's an interesting historical review of the Swifties that anyone who's inclined to keep up with the ancestors and progeny of the likes of Jim Tobin might look into. It strikes me as quite thorough.
Although Johnson's narrative ends in 2006 and Wikipedia says the outfit is defunct as of 2008, their strategies are evident in the Club for Growth and one of the "stars" of the 2004 edition, Col. George E. Day, has recently re-surfaced as a defender of John McCain.
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It's interesting that quite a few of their undertakings have come to naught. While Johnson's point was valid,
The professional Republican PR and campaign consultants who created, funded, and coordinated the attacks on John Kerry continue to spread their poison. And now, with the 2006 campaign season upon us they are ready to attack again, creating false stories and spreading doubt and mistrust about the more than fifty veterans running for Congress this fall. We can expect that candidates like Former Navy Secretary Jim Webb, Admiral Joe Sestak, Lt. Colonel Charlie Brown and Captain Patrick Murphy will be targets for attack. So it's a good idea to look back and understand what is happening here, how they have perfected the politics of political destruction since the strategy emerged, where some of them are now, and examine some ways to fight back.
one really has to wonder what was the point? It's almost as if some of the efforts were designed to fail. And this hypothesis seems to have been invalidated by subsequent events--
For example, in the 2000 South Carolina primary battle between George W. Bush and John McCain, Bush surrogates (several later involved in the Kerry swiftboating effort) skillfully turned McCain's service record against him (thereby deflecting questions about Bush's own service record.) They planted stories that the torture McCain suffered as a POW had brought about mental instability, including rumors that he had been programmed as a "Manchurian candidate" who "collaborated with the enemy." No longer could McCain use the fact that he had endured torture as evidence of dedication to serving his country.
How do we know they were Bush surrogates?
Johnson notes,
The Republicans have for some time been riding a public perception that they are somehow "better" on defense issues than Democrats. But this certainly isn't true, and they know it.
but he doesn't take the next step--that perhaps the whole point of the attacks on the competition is to disguise where Republicans know themselves to be weak. So that, in the event that Democrats point out the flaws, they can charge that it's just a matter of "getting back" and deflect the critique. That would explain why the Republican attacks never seem to make any sense.
While the list of characters (James Tobin,Chris LaCivita,Keith Appell,Merrie Spaeth,Rick Reed,Dick Wadhams) and their web of connections is impressive, their targets (Social Security, Robert Byrd, Jim Webb, immigration) have not been significantly injured. Perhaps that's because the PR people are just in it for the money.
Clearly, distracting from Republican weaknesses is a central component in recent political advertising. However, the "attack" on John McCain by the Republicans for Clean Air in 2000, like the Club for Growth "attack" on Mike Huckabee as a "tax and spender" may be more of a "false flag" effort that's designed to deceive the public about who's agenda is actually being promoted.
Reminds me of the Killdeer pretending to have a broken wing.
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