We just can't do what we have to do to win.

[Guaranteed]

So many of you are going to hate me for this, but I don't know what else to say.

In order to win, we have to beat Bush on the terrorism issue. Whether we like it or not, this IS a dick-measuring contest. Tweety was just talking about this, wondering why, for example, Edwards was talking a lot about economic and healthcare issues instead of focusing nearly exclusively on the war on terror last night in Ohio. We needed to rebut the Bush administration extremely forcefully at that point, and the Kerry campaign just doesn't seem to want to get that far into it. They're certainly far from wanting to surround themselves with it, like the Bush administration wants to do.

Anyway, in order to beat Bush on this issue we have to ram it down people's throats that invading Iraq was a detriment to our world standing and to our war on terrorism. This is THE winning strategy. *There is no other way to beat him.* The war on terror trumps all other issues as far as the public is concerned, and we HAVE to, absolutely fucking HAVE TO, show that what Bush has done HAS NOT BEEN IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES.

The problem is that Kerry can't do this without contradicting himself. His IWR vote just totally screws him. He maybe could say that we didn't work with the world in the way that we could have, but most other countries simply were not in favor of this invasion. They knew it was bullshit through and through, just like the rest of us did. I saw Clark talking to Wolf Blitzer last night, and the second Clark even mentioned Iraq Blitzer came back with the damned IWR. It's no-win. However we respond, it just doesn't have the power that we need behind it. We need to be able to WRAP ourselves in the issue, make it the cornerstone of our campaign, and it just doesn't seem like we can do it.

What the hell can we do about this? It's our central problem. I've been racking my brain trying to figure a way for Kerry to approach this that wouldn't be left open to the IWR vote response, but I just don't see it.

Can this be done? Anyone have any ideas?