Q: The campaign that you came into, there’s two things I want to ask about it. One is, because of the decision to take the federal funding for the fall campaign, and because of the timing of the Democratic convention, and the Republican convention, you in effect had to take that 70 million — 75 million dollars and make it last three months. They had to make it last only two months. Did that — was that part of the reason why August was — they were holding back on really launching the campaign? [00:36:00]
LOCKHART: Yeah. And again, I wasn’t there for a good bit of this. The decision that were made on response to Swift Boat were made before I got there. I’m not saying that to divorce myself from them, or whatever; I just wasn’t there. But certainly in talking to people, there was a sense that money was to be saved at all costs. And there was a sense that these attacks were not working.
Q: The Swift Boat attacks?
LOCKHART: Right. And I think that on the first part, I agree. And it’s just, I don’t think you’ll see again, because no one takes federal money anymore. But that was a huge disadvantage. And I’m not sure that they could have anticipated that, or should have anticipated [00:37:00] that, but it was a huge disadvantage. So I completely agree. I just disagree with the — it’s not working, because these things, they don’t show up in the daily tracking poll. I mean, the day I started the campaign, I think the daily track had Kerry ahead four or five points. But if you looked at the polling and the underlying attributes, this was a house that was about to collapse. And you could see it, you — we knew, you know, or at least I had the sense, I think many others did too. I don’t — again, I’m not arguing that I came in and said, “Look at this, it’s broken,” that his — he was weak, and he had been weakened by this. And you didn’t see that. My guess is they probably didn’t see that right away at the beginning.
I’m not particularly adept or driven by daily polls, partly because I’m not smart enough. [00:38:00] I am driven by past experience, and I sat through Dukakis. And I got hired by the Dukakis campaign; I had sort of done communications for the Democratic convention with the understanding that the day we moved out of the convention, I was moving over to the Dukakis campaign, I did. We were 17 points ahead. I was on that campaign for a month, and we were 10 points behind. (laughter) It’s not my fault. Or maybe it was, but you know. So I viscerally remember from 1988, if you just let — if you let one side go, and don’t find an effective way to push back, it has a real impact. I think, you know, when you’ve got even amounts of money fighting each other, you can neutralize almost anything. But, you know, in this case, at least watching from the outside I was curious, really curious [00:39:00] to why this was going on, and I think —
Q: You mean the absence of response to the Swift Boat ad?
LOCKHART: Yeah, yeah.
Q: What would have been the right way to respond, the most effective way to respond in August?
LOCKHART: I think — and hindsight is 20/20. I think there was certainly, if there were independent groups on the Republican side, there certainly could have been independent groups on the Democratic side. But I think, again, hindsight being 20/20, I think this could have been a moment for Kerry to challenge Bush directly, as in you know, you were — I actually did serve. I actually saw combat. I actually saw friends lose their lives. I respect your decision to not — to join the Guard, but I don’t respect you allowing your political allies to launch these attacks. [00:40:00]
The risk there was — at the moment was, if he does that, it elevates this. Well, looking back on it, it’s easy for me to say, it elevated anyway, and by the time it elevated, there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle. So again, if I’d been sitting in the room, I can’t tell you that I would have argued for responding. I would hope I would have raised my hand and say, let’s remember 1988, but there were people in the room who were there, so they knew that. And others will know better how much of this was political strategy; how much of this was political economy, that we just can’t spend the money. And how much of it was that it was August, and people were tired and they needed a couple weeks off, or a couple days off, and you know it’s — people want to draw these grand strategic conclusions about everything that happens in politics, [00:41:00] when if you dig a little deeper, you’ll often find that it’s something a little simpler.
I am convinced to this day that President Bush’s response to Katrina had as much to do with the fact that his communications director was getting married that weekend, and half his staff was there, and the people who would have said, “Whoa, don’t do this; don’t do that,” then, like the president not caring. You know, do I know this? No. But when you look at campaigns, you — it’s so common that it’s predictable that the campaign that finished — you know, does their convention in July, and then has some time, that lull can often kill them. And it was fatal to Dukakis. I wouldn’t say fatal to Kerry, but damaging.
Q: I have read that you did [00:42:00] have the idea of sending Senator Max Cleland, or former Senator Max Cleland —
LOCKHART: Yeah, yeah it was —
Q: — to Crawford, Texas. Could you talk about that?
LOCKHART: Yeah, it was interesting because there was a lot of — I think there was a lot of resi– you know, when you commit to a strategy, you need to stay committed it; you need to see it through. And I think there strategy was to dismiss this, and you know say it was beneath it, and you know.