How Karl Rove and Pals Tricked John Kerry - Documented!

What Karl Told ABC News

Guest Panel Dicusses Election Results, Future of Democratic Party

Aired November 3, 2004 - 21:00 ET

Full Larry King Transcript Mark Whitaker / Newsweek

KING: Mark, what went wrong? I know "Newsweek" is going to delve into it tomorrow in that issue as to where Kerry went wrong.

WHITAKER: We reconstruct the whole campaign from behind the scenes. And what you discover, what we report is the Bush campaign was always one step ahead of the Kerry campaign on every level.

First of all, the thematic level. They were -- the thematic level, they were just very successful in framing this election about being about security and values. Kerry never found a comparable story line for his campaign.

But they were also technically much better. They were constantly setting traps for Kerry that he kept falling into. I mean, we have -- the story, the false story of how Kerry made that comment about I voted for the 87 billion before I voted against it. That was actually a trap that they set for him.

He was going down to speak to a veterans' group in West Virginia. They had this theory, Ken Mehlman called it the rabbit theory, that if you put the rabbit out, he'll chase it. So Mark McKinnon, the ad guy put up an ad just in the local market down there going hard at him at this issue of voting against the aid in Iraq. Kerry got rattled by it. A heckler showed up, who may or may not have been sent by the Bush campaign to give him a hard time during the speech.

And after an hour of being heckled by this, Kerry just in exasperation blurted out that line. And as soon as they saw it at headquarters, at Bush headquarters, they knew that they had something they could hang around him and attack him.

KING: The only thing that made it closer then, was the debates? Kerry clearly winning the debates.

WHITAKER: Absolutely. And the one really negative, sort of, rough period for the Bush campaign was the debates. Going into the debates, they were so cocky, they thought they were so far ahead, that they didn't really prepare the president properly. And they were sort of shocked by the reaction, because that peeved manner that Bush had during the debates was something that they've seen internally. So they didn't -- inside the White House. So, they originally didn't realize how bad it was.