The "Do-over" election

Link via Atrios:

[T]he campaign's newest communications strategist, Joe Lockhart, derided Bush and his acceptance speech in unusually personal terms.

"It's almost like the president, with his boyish charm, is looking for a political do-over" — as if he has not been president the last four years, Lockhart told reporters.

To which the Bush campaign responded:

Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said that while Bush "is focused on his positive vision for the future … John Kerry … is consumed with the past."

This criticism had more legitimacy when we were talking about Vietnam. The suggestion that a candidate should not run against his opponent's record in office is absurd, as the Bush campaign implicitly acknowledges when it tries to make points against Senator Kerry's record. In that sense, the Bush campaign is much more "consumed with the past" than the Kerry campaign.

I know, I shouldn't say "sense" in connection with either one of these campaigns.