"ATTACK THE STRENGTHS"

Karl Rove was a genius at making an opponent's strengths seem to be weaknesses. From Frontline, 3/12/2005:

When in trouble, there's a precedent in a Rove-Bush campaign that basically [says] you hit back, and you hit back hard. You find the strongest card in the other guy's hand, and that's what you take him down on. In this election it was Vietnam. Explain that.

Very early on, Karl Rove did something that many other political operatives don't do, and it's really an element of why he's a unique figure in American political life: He understands that while other people look for the weakness in an opponent and exploit that, Rove has long looked at the strength of an opponent. In the case of Ann Richards running for governor, it was that she was tolerant and appealed to many constituents, so you attack her as an advocate for the homosexuals' agenda. In the case of John McCain, it was that he was a POW in Vietnam, and so you raise questions about his service in Vietnam through surrogate groups.

In 2004, the number one thing that John Kerry offered was his heroic service in Vietnam, and so what Rove did was attack the strength of Kerry, not his weakness. What you had to do was confront Kerry's strength in Vietnam by raising doubts about whether or not he was a hero and whether or not his service was really all that noble. And you do that in part with a surrogate group, raising questions about whether his medals were truly warranted, and beyond that, pressing the case of John Kerry, who came back from the war as an opponent of the war.

On the message boards at Politico, I've noticed that the wingnuts like to demean Pres. Obama's competence, which is certainly one of his strong points.