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...nation's aging baby boomers seem especially cranky. The economy jumps up and down, gasoline for the family Hummer is too expensive, and every day Americans are hit with the harsh reality of a U.S. soldier being killed out near Babylon. In times like these, with issues like these, the candidates and their surrogates already seem to be debating at the top of their lungs.
The Bush and Kerry teams have been posturing for months like television wrestlers anticipating a contest in a steel cage. To the untrained eye it may look like little more than a tangle of staged photo ops, electronic mudslinging, sporadic press releases and repetitious speeches, but it's all part of a big message that candidates want to convey to the public. And behind it all are cagey ministers of information manipulating the language and staging the drama. These chieftains of communication, say political insiders, will play the most crucial role in the upcoming presidential election. They will be the ones who spin the facts, discredit the opponent and shape the image of their candidate.
"For the Bush campaign, Karl Rove is the political manager of everything under the sun. Rove is going to be the guy who e pulls messages together and decides strategy," says Michael A. Genovese, chairman of leadership studies and director of the Institute for Leadership Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and author of more than a dozen books on politics and the presidency. But Genovese says the Kerry camp still is trying to find a Rove-like overlord for its message. Kerry has just hired Zach Exley, formerly a Move On.org strategist, to run his Internet operations. But don't jump the gun, he warns, "It's still hard to tell whether he [Exley] gets the ear of the candidate."
Exley has been a firebrand electronic activist since the 2000 election, when he set up a Website called gwbush.com, where he insisted George W. Bush was a cocaine addict. The site is still in operation and sells...
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