Kerry has found himself in this situation before: underestimated and pinned down in terrain he doesn’t seem to know well. In earlier incarnations–as a Swift Boat commander in the Mekong Delta and as a contender in Iowa and New Hampshire–he not only survived; he triumphed. And he did it with a straightforward strategy: charging enemy positions. “His way of dealing with an ambush was to attack,” recalls Del Sandusky, who piloted one of Kerry’s patrol boats.
As it was then, so it apparently is now. In theory, it’s foolish to take on a sitting president in his role as the commander in chief. But that’s what Kerry has decided to do. He now questions George Bush’s National Guard attendance record and Dick Cheney’s multiple draft deferments. This week Kerry launches a huge TV ad buy touting his war years and his “strength and service.” “We won’t concede one inch on ‘strength’,” says one Kerry operative.
Clearly, it was long past time for Kerry to follow the old Navy dictum: don’t just stand there, do something! Since effectively securing the Democratic nomination a full two months ago, Kerry has raised money at a record pace but otherwise fiddled in Rome. Outside Kerry’s circle, Beltway wise guys belittle his campaign as a listless and message-less mishmash that has failed to engage a vulnerable incumbent.
Instead, Kerry has been ridiculed for numerous position shifts and baloney-slicing emendations of the story of his story. Among them: Does he own an SUV? (He once said he did, but now he says his family does, though he doesn’t.) Was he for or against an $87 billion war appropriation? (“I voted for it before I voted against it,” he said.) Which war decorations did he toss at an antiwar protest in 1971 on the steps of the Capitol? (At the time, he said they were medals; in 1984, he said they were ribbons; last week he said that medals and ribbons were “absolutely interchangeable.”)
Some politicians can get away with this kind of thing. Bill Clinton was a master at the three-card monte game of autobiographical self-editing. George W. Bush has carried out some monumental shifts of position–he campaigned as a foe of “nation-building,” for example–but voters give him post-9/11 leeway and credit for bullheadedness. Kerry has neither the soft charm nor the chops to shape-shift without all the gears showing. Reviewers, including putative friends, lambaste him for “shimmying” and for “distended, lumbering TV appearances.” On the trail, he still can be wooden and lordly, as if he were offering himself as a candidate for secretary of State–in the 19th century. His speeches can be a hash of proposals and exhortations–a “wapatooey,” as pour-it-all-in-the-punchbowl drinks are known on some college campuses. Parallel to the unfriendly “free media,” Bush-Cheney ‘04 has leveled an unprecedented $60 million “shock and awe” barrage of TV ads at him.
It’s a wonder of a sort that Kerry is still standing. After being slightly ahead in the polls, he has fallen slightly behind in most of them. In this closely divided nation, changes in horse-race numbers aren’t likely to be dramatic. And there is dispute about the BDAs (bomb-damage assessments) in the battleground states. “Bush has spent $60 million and raised Kerry’s ‘unfavorables’ by only four points,” said a Kerry handler. But polls in places like Pennsylvania show a steep drop-off in Kerry’s profile. Democrats fret that it may be too late to change Kerry’s image–even though the election is still six months away. “Voters will view Kerry from here on through the lens we’ve set up,” said a top Bush strategist.
He had better hope so, for President Bush’s own list of wartime vulnerabilities is growing. Last week was the first anniversary of his “mission accomplished” landing on the USS Lincoln, and the videotape of his strut across the deck in his flight suit is arguably far more politically damaging than the one of Kerry as a shaggy-maned protester in 1971. Other recent footage–from Iraq–is even more problematic: images of wounded and dead American soldiers on battlefields, and of Coalition members humiliating prisoners in a Baghdad jail. Poll after poll shows support for the Iraq war eroding–a trend unlikely to be reversed by Ted Koppel’s reading of the “names of the fallen” on ABC’s “Nightline” last week.
In the meantime, behind the scenes, Team Kerry has stepped up the pace of the search for a running mate. Jim Johnson, a longtime friend of Kerry’s, is supervising the process, which has fully vetted two contenders so far, Rep. Dick Gephardt and Sen. John Edwards. A third is undergoing the process now, NEWSWEEK has learned. He is retired Gen. Wesley Clark–a further sign of Kerry’s interest in the commander theme. And the tight-lipped Johnson, NEWSWEEK has learned, privately expressed considerable interest several weeks ago in Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, who meets several veeply criteria: he’s close to Kerry (having helped him win Iowa), he’s Roman Catholic (which has become a major plus in national politics) and he’s a geographical twofer, having been reared in western Pennsylvania, a key battleground. One insider predicts that Kerry will pick someone by the end of this month–extraordinarily early but perhaps an urgent necessity to fend off GOP attacks.
But the more urgent task is developing a coherent message. For that, Kerry has deployed a consultant team led by Robert Shrum, the widely praised–and widely derided–writer and adman. Shrum is known for lilting, alliterative speeches, union-hall populism and his track record–which is excellent in everything except presidential campaigns. Working with Mary Beth Cahill, the campaign manager, Shrum and his partners have assembled their pitch. They are planning to sell their candidate as a paragon of “service and strength” whose mission statement is “Together, we can build a stronger America.” A new, lengthy (60-second) “bio” spot will run for three weeks in at least 20 states, including at least one (Louisiana) in the South, NEWSWEEK has learned. It will include footage of Kerry in Vietnam and as a protest leader (“We aren’t going to run away from that,” said one adviser). There will be testimonials from some of Kerry’s Vietnam compatriots.
What’s interesting is not how different the substance of the message is from Bush’s–but how similar. In a post-9/11 world, it seems, “togetherness” is a good idea, but “strength” is indispensable. In a well-crafted–and well-received–speech at Westminster College in Missouri late last week (a speech written by newly installed wordsmiths), Kerry in essence agreed with Bush on most points: that we can’t leave Iraq precipitously, that we may need more troops, that we have to involve NATO and train the Iraqi military carefully. “We should sign him up as a surrogate,” said Nicolle Devenish of BC'04. “Those are all our positions.” But she may be missing the point. For now, at least, Kerry’s strategy is clear: if the country wants a commander in chief, pick the one who has actually been under fire in war, not the stateside guy who got us into Iraq.
