In a New York Times Political Memo article entitled "When an Explosive Charge Is Not Handled With Care", Adam Nagourney takes quite a tough stand against Vice President Dick Cheney's newest attack on John Kerry. At a political rally in Des Moines on Tuesday, Cheney had this to say about the differences between Bush and Kerry on the issue of defending America; if John Kerry were elected, "[the] danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating."

In response, Nagourney leads with the following:

Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that the nation was more likely to "get hit again" by terrorists if John Kerry was elected was one of the toughest attacks launched in a presidential election in 40 years.

But Mr. Cheney's latest assault on Mr. Kerry, which startled Democrats and Republicans alike, raised a central question even in this notably ferocious presidential campaign: Is it possible for a candidate to go too far, and alienate the very voters he is trying to court?

In one sign that the answer to that question may be yes, Mr. Cheney's aides were quick to say that he had not meant to be quite so direct in his remarks in Des Moines on Tuesday...

Nagourney continues:

Still, Mr. Cheney's harsh presentation of that argument in Des Moines may well have crossed that line, analysts said, and created potential perils for the White House.

"It's a risky strategy," said Stephen D. Ansolabehere, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If they feel they have to bring some independent voters into their camp, this is a fine line to walk."

Indeed, polls suggest that independent voters, whom both parties are courting assiduously, are put off by what they might see as crass or exceedingly negative political campaigning. What is more, Republicans have worried that Mr. Cheney's campaign visage is already a little too stern, and that the image of him issuing an alarming warning about a Kerry presidency would hardly help.

[...]

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said one factor ascribed to Jimmy Carter's loss in 1980 was his remark that that Ronald Reagan's election could mean that "Americans might be separated, blacks from whites, Jews from Christians, North from South, rural from urban."

Though Cheney may have appeared moderate in comparison to the rabidly angry Zell Miller last week during the Republican Convention, the Vice President's true colors shone this week. Kudos to The New York Times for taking the Bush-Cheney campaign to task for such meanspirited comments.

These baseless scare tactics also provided an opening for the Democrats; when an attack is this scurrilous, it can actually be used in the future by the Kerry campaign to defend itself (i.e. they can respond to future claims that he is weak on defense by equating any new attack along these lines as the same thing as Cheney's claim). What is more, it provided a perfect opportunity to compare and contrast campaign styles.

Spencer S. Hsu and Dana Milbank report in today's edition of The Washington Post that John Kerry and John Edwards hit back hard against Bush-Cheney team.

Democrat John F. Kerry yesterday denounced as "outrageous and shameful" Vice President Cheney's statement that Americans risk another terrorist attack if President Bush is not reelected, as congressional Democrats assailed the credibility of a leading administration voice on national security.

Kerry, interviewed in Minnesota by a local television station, said Cheney's statement made it clear that the president and the vice president "will say anything and do anything in order to get elected."

[...]

Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards, meanwhile, called on Bush to repudiate Cheney's statement, saying it was "calculated to divide us on the issues of safety and security for the American people."

This is all a game of the "Republicans' Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics," as Joshua Micah Marshall has put it. The Republican theory is that if the Democrat fails to defend himself against such nasty attacks, he will seem weak--not only in campaign terms, but also in being able to defend America.

This "metadebate"--as Marshall deems it--has often been lost by the Democrats in the past (see Dukakis and Gore... and to an extent the Swiftvet controversy); however, Kerry and Edwards hit back early and hard with all of their surrogates on message, showing strength not only within the race for the Presidency but also the race to defend America. I'm not sure if this new strategy is thanks to Clintonistas Joe Lockhart and Paul Begala or merely a reaction to the unswift response to the SBVf"T" ads. Either way, Kerry has definitely won this news cycle, and it will certainly help him on his way to 270 electoral votes.