Los Angeles Times
August 2, 2004
ZANESVILLE, Ohio — Hope is as perishable in presidential campaigns as in
baseball. The glow of July often dims by October, a lesson that John F. Kerry,
a longtime fan of the beloved but bedeviled Boston Red Sox, should remember
better than most.
So it may prove ephemeral, but Kerry and his running
mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, rolled out of their convention over
the weekend exuding optimism. The best measure of their mood was their message
and their itinerary. Both sent the same signal: The Democrats are determined
to play on Republican turf.
That was the unrelenting theme of last
week's convention. One after another, speakers lauded Kerry's values and
integrity, and above all, his strength. The convention presented Kerry not just
as an acceptable alternative as commander in chief but an improvement — as
strong as President Bush, but wiser, as former President Clinton suggested.
Listening to the procession of generals and Vietnam War veterans at the
podium, Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio saw a revealing calculation in Kerry's
choice of emphasis.
To Fabrizio, the Massachusetts senator was telling
the White House that he believed his hold was already so great over voters
primarily concerned about the economy and other domestic issues that he could
focus most of his fire on Bush's strongest point: his management of the war on
terrorism.
"I thought Kerry's speech was a very offensive-minded
speech," said Fabrizio, the pollster for Republican presidential nominee Bob
Dole in 1996. "They made it clear they were going to play on once-hallowed
Republican ground — terrorism, national security and foreign affairs."
Kerry made his case effectively enough, Fabrizio predicted, that voters
would feel more confident in him as a leader, particularly on the critical
post-9/11 question of his qualifications as commander in chief. Indeed, a
Newsweek poll released Saturday showed rising voter faith in Kerry's ability to
handle an international crisis.
Another Republican pollster, Frank
Luntz, saw similar gains after Kerry's speech with a focus group of 20 undecided
Ohio voters he assembled for MSNBC. Some Democrats felt that Luntz had stacked
the deck because 14 of the 20 participants had voted for Bush in 2000. But that
only made the group's positive response to the speech more striking.
"I'm shocked that a Democrat would do as well as Kerry did on national
security," Luntz said a few minutes after the speech. "This is a brand-new
campaign. In certain ways, Bush is now the underdog."
That's
premature. But Kerry's campaign continues to behave as if it believes it has
the wind at its back.
On the morning after his acceptance speech, Kerry
began a two-week coast-to-coast bus and train tour that largely targets the
small towns and rural communities where Bush amassed his greatest margins in
2000. On Saturday, Kerry's rallies in Greensburg, Pa.; Wheeling, W.Va.; and
Zanesville took him to three counties that all voted for Bush last time. It's
no exaggeration to say Kerry is aiming precisely at the places that elected Bush
— a point dramatized when Kerry's motorcade nearly crossed paths with
Bush's in Republican-leaning western Pennsylvania late Saturday afternoon.
Small-town and rural America isn't an easy fit for Kerry. Though Kerry
touted himself as a hunter and fisherman, many voters in the places he visited
over the weekend probably feel more culturally compatible with Bush. Yet doubts
about the economy and disillusionment with the war in Iraq have cracked open the
door for the Democrat.
The opportunity was evident in the crowds that
filled small-town squares and riverside parks Saturday to hear Kerry, even under
a leaden, rainy, sky. "I just want a change," said Sally Rector, a Bush voter
from 2000 who attended a packed Kerry rally Saturday along the gently rolling
Ohio River in Wheeling.
Bush chose a similar place Friday in southwest
Missouri for his first appearance after the Democratic National Convention. He
focused his message heavily on social issues, suggesting that Kerry was out of
touch with heartland values on concerns such as abortion and gay rights. On
Saturday, he painted Kerry as a time-server in the Senate.
And Vice
President Dick Cheney has already resumed the assaults on Kerry's national
security voting record that featured so prominently in the Bush campaign's
arguments before the Democrats gathered.
Tarnishing some of Kerry's
post-convention shine is obviously part of any Bush recovery plan. But there is
a growing consensus in both parties that this campaign is unlikely to replicate
1988, when George H.W. Bush won mostly by convincing many voters that his
opponent, Democrat Michael S. Dukakis, was not a plausible president.
Largely because of Kerry's combat experience, it is going to be more difficult
for this Bush to disqualify his rival. And after a Democratic convention that
bolted so much more armor on Kerry's credentials as a wartime leader, the
prospect that the GOP can render Kerry flatly unacceptable to a majority of
Americans is even more remote.
Does that mean Bush is doomed? No.
This isn't 1980 or 1992, when the incumbent was swept away by an irresistible
demand for change. But Bush is facing what most polls suggest is a narrow
majority now inclined to change direction, and a challenger who has greatly
strengthened his credibility as an alternative.
Maybe Bush will still
find a set of arguments that causes Kerry to crumble as Dukakis did. Kerry
might commit a major blunder.
But more likely the president will win a
second term only if he can reverse the demand for change by restoring faith in
his own leadership and direction.
In that, Bush needs cooperation from
events. He may also need a different focus.
For months, his campaign
has mostly stressed the risks of change. After Kerry's strong performance last
week, Bush's greatest need now is to find a compelling case for continuity.
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