Kerry camp disarray continues

NEW YORK, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Five senior Kerry campaign advisers met for breakfast with 50 print reporters in New York Thursday to tamp down stories about staff shakeups.

But Wall Street Journal online political diarist John Fund wrote the meeting "failed to quell rumors that the campaign is in disarray."

Democrats outside the campaign "have been openly sounding wake-up calls," Fund said. Several urged that campaign pollster Mark Mellman be dumped while others want former Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart to be given a seat at the Kerry-Edwards strategy table along with new campaign communication duties.

Past presidential campaigns have, in some cases, be able to rebound from a bad August to win the November general; one frequently cited is the George H.W. Bush 1992 campaign. But, Fund writes, "The Kerry campaign is suffering its crisis of confidence in September, with the election only two months away." He cited at least one member of the Democrats' New York "truth squad" is "privately making comparisons to the ill-fated Dukakis campaign of 1988."

"He was a Massachusetts liberal who thought he would be an easy sell to the rest of the country against a clueless guy named Bush," the former Democratic congressman told Fund. "Right now, that all sounds very familiar."