Here's another interesting

NY Times story (full body cavity search required), on the Kerry rebranding effort. This article shows again why, as EJ Dionne says, the Democrats are losing an ideological war against the Republicans in the public eye.

The very cynicism with which these advertising execs (and Russell Simmons!) talk about improving Kerry's branding really brings home the point that the Democrats are missing. The way you win voters' hearts and minds isn't by looking like you have the right idea. It's by having the right idea. The American public is pretty deft at spotting fakes, especially in this day and age of instant, persistent media coverage (one might even, if one were cynical, say "despite" instead of "especially in"), and it's pretty obvious that John Kerry is a big fat phony. His ideological opaqueness (and that's really being very diplomatic) is not only hurting him, it's helping Bush. By his constant striving to be everything to everyone, he's lost, I dare say, the faith of everyone but the "Anyone but Bush" crowd. In contrast, to their base, the Republicans have the right idea and look like they do. Their political machine is trim, agile and puts their Democratic counterpart to shame.

There's not much besides paranoia keeping me from calling time-of-death on this thing right now. (Via InstaPundit)