White House Watch: Cheney's sound bites hurt him
There's a bit of good news for Vice President Cheney about his image, which has taken a battering lately because he is associated with everything that's gone wrong in Iraq: The more swing voters hear Cheney talk, the more sense he makes to them.
Private GOP focus groups find that when voters are placed in a room and shown an entire Cheney speech, they are impressed with his intellect, his articulateness, and his views. It's the sound bites that get him in trouble, because television editors generally boil down his statements to the most provocative and conservative few seconds they can find. The trouble for the veep is that his full speeches are almost never carried in their entirety.
"Cheney in 'long form' is as effective as he ever was," says a prominent GOP consultant. "But in sound bites, he loses his 'oomph.' "