President George W. Bush's numbers keep dropping in the polls. We all have our opinions as to the reasons. The reasons are not the focus of the thread, unless they can be placed into the context of the questions:

What does John Kerry have to do to win the Presidency?

What does he have to avoid doing/saying?

What does John Kerry have to do to win the Presidency?

I alluded to this in another thread, but the single most important thing Kerry needs to do to win in November is have clear, concise, and rational approach for the War on Terror at large and a plan for Iraq. He should be flexible on Iraq as the situation will likely change daily there up until the election.

This speech is a good start, but he needs to do better than that.

Futhermore, he needs to define his thoughts in this area without appearing to be guilty of "Bush Bashing". I believe that the goals of both the Bush administration and John Kerry are the same, but the devil is in the details, and I cannot tolerate the way the Bush administration is executing right now -- Kerry can offer an alternative.

I'd like to see him continue to draw attention to the other flaws in the Bush administration, but through indirect sources. I.E. Use other Democrats as his mouth peice, use generic advertising or work through organizations like MoveOn.org to get ads on TV. I don't know, what do you all think?

What does he have to avoid doing/saying?

--> Kerry needs to give his war record a rest, it is a dead horse and won't get him anywhere. The Bush administration and the Republican spin machine has probably cast enough doubt on it that it now hurts more than helps.

--> Kerry should avoid taking cheap jabs at Bush on various things. It seems like it always comes back to haunt him through some kind of soundbite. He needs to learn from the master of the game, Karl Rove, and use more indirect methods. Not necessarily play dirty, but be more indirect.

--> He needs to avoid talking about sideline issues like the whole gay marriage debate. That whole deal is merely meant as a diversion tactic and should remain background noise. Yes it is important, but he should worry about it once he becomes president, not campaign on it or he'll lose voters that might have otherwise been inclined to vote or he'll force republican voters out to the voting booths that might have otherwise stayed home. When it really comes down to it, Bush will never pass an amendment and the president can't really effect much change in this area anyway. It will eventually come down to a supreme court decision in the next few years.

--> He needs to take a good honest look at his platform and make sure he sticks to it! A lot of this reputation for flip-flopping on issues is just rhetoric, but there is a little truth in some of it because at the beginning of the game he was very unorganized in my opinion. His campaign needs to start reigning him in a bit and focusing him.

Edited to fix a few mistakes in my post.

In response to your first question, he needs to attack W's dirty henchmen whenever he can. McCain got mugged in South Carolina during the 2000 primary race, and Kerry can't let the same thing happen to him. When a negative ad goes out, Kerry needs to respond promptly-the whole "he pulls a knife, you pull a gun" theory of campaigning.

I believe that he needs to avoid trying to add some depth to the issues, in doing so, that gets interpreted a lot of times as hedging, or flip-flopping on the issues. The voters don't want complicated answers to complicated questions-they just want overgeneralized answers to complicated questions.