Kerry Nation?
BARNES, FRED
Kerry Nation? Don't bet on it. BY FRED BARNES REMEMBER THE BEAR in the woods? It was featured in the ost devastating of President Reagan's TV ads in the 1984 presidential race. An angry, menacing...
...That rarely works anymore...
...The answer is they've succumbed to panic...
...Nothing is more pathetic in the Washington political community these days than tremulous Republicans and conservatives who whine about how Bush may lose to Kerry...
...Bush has one thing, and probably two, to fall back on...
...There's every reason to expect growth of 4.5 percent to 5 percent in 2004...
...Since no one can really be sure who's right, isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear—if there is a bear...
...But if Kerry is a target-rich environment, why are Republicans and conservatives despairing over Bush's chances of defeating him...
...Politics, however, is a strange business...
...National security...
...Presidential campaigns unfold in phases, and this is the Kerry phase...
...The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (yet) is embarrassing...
...But playing both sides of an issue could hurt Kerry on gay marriage...
...They didn't...
...The media may think polls showing Kerry ahead of Bush in February are predictive of what will happen on November 2, but that's foolishness...
...What should work, though, is a TV spot with wit and subtlety that plays up a Kerry weakness...
...When those votes began to sour, he changed his tune...
...All that bravado about "bring it on" if Bush wants to raise national security actually means "don't bring it on...
...His State of the Union address was flat...
...The National Guard flap is a distraction...
...A simple rule is worth recalling: In politics, the future is never a straight-line projection of the present...
...the bear in the woods practically writes itself...
...An angry, menacing bear was shown prowling through a forest...
...It was clever and amusing, but it made a point...
...In any case, no president seeking reelection—and unchallenged for his party's nomination—has lost with an economy like this...
...Perhaps a more blunt approach will work...
...Not likely...
...Well, he might, but don't bet on it...
...He voted each time for what would advance his political career as a Democrat...
...For some people the bear is easy to see...
...The only coherent explanation for these votes is political expediency...
...Bush's tax cuts brought the top rate down to only 35 percent...
...The storyline for the moment is: Kerry wins...
...For Bush operatives, the problem with Kerry is where to begin...
...Every week, sometimes twice a week, he beats his Democratic rivals...
...Others don't see it at all...
...Several quarters posted job gains of one million...
...Flip-flops...
...John Edwards, Wesley Clark, and Dean serve as the patsy Washington Generals who lose every game to Kerry's Harlem Globetrotters...
...But will it be a jobless recovery...
...Their time will come soon enough...
...He opposes gay marriage but isn't for a constitutional amendment to bar it...
...Bush should have no trouble scoring off Kerry on issue after issue...
...Take Kerry's insistence that the terrorist threat to this country is "an exaggeration...
...The final words on the screen: "President Reagan, prepared for peace...
...Trying to reconcile these conflicts may tie Kerry in knots...
...But why should voters take a chance...
...The ad never mentioned the Soviets, the Cold War, the Red Army, Communists, or Reagan's Democratic opponent, Walter Mon-dale...
...A droll but pointed anti-Kerry ad along the lines of Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Others say it's vicious and dangerous...
...The first is the economy...
...The Bush economic team projects 2.6 million new jobs this year, wiping out the losses of earlier years...
...Cutting the CIA budget may have looked safe in the 1990s, but post-9/11 it doesn't...
...Once the war to drive Saddam Hussein from Kuwait became a popular success, he said he had backed it all along...
...Reagan won reelection overwhelmingly...
...Sure, Bush has had a bad month...
...In the 1990s, a year with 4 million new jobs was followed by a year in which 3.5 million were created...
...The emphasis on Kerry's heroism as a young naval officer is designed to inoculate him on national security...
...The Blue Chip Forecast of top economists pegs job growth at 2 million...
...This, by the way, makes it difficult to tag him as an unswerving liberal...
...Kerry's inconsistency on Iraq is his greatest liability, not just because he's taken incompatible positions, but because he's trifled with a serious national security issue...
...This produces a stream of favorable stories about Kerry...
...The recently intercepted memo from terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi suggests anti-American diehards are rapidly losing heart...
...If the immediate result in sovereign Iraq is mixed, Bush may still claim success...
...It shouldn't...
...It's the one he least wants to discuss...
...They all may be lowballing...
...He voted against the Gulf War in 1991, for the Iraq war resolution in 2002, and then against $87 billion to fund the Iraq effort...
...The key is not to scream, "Liberal, liberal, liberal...
...I cite the bear in the woods ad as an example of how President Bush's reelection campaign can go after his likely Democratic rival, John Kerry...
...The deficit is nothing to brag about...
...Perhaps not...
...And Kerry has emerged from nowhere as a formidable foe who looks all the better because he's not Howard Dean...
...Beginning with national security makes the most sense since it's Kerry's weakest issue...
...You never know what will stick...
...His opponent might not see the threat to the United States posed by the bear, the symbol of the Soviet Union...
...He says states should decide the matter, but he voted against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 that allows states to do just that...
...So maybe even sly and humorous TV ads won't persuade voters of Kerry's shortcomings...
...There's a bear in the woods," the narrator said...
...Then a man with a gun appears and the bear takes a step back...
...While he favors higher taxes, he voted in 1986 to cut the top rate on individual income to 28 percent...
...The Bush campaign is inclined to ding Kerry as a phony because he's been on both sides of so many issues...
...He's voted against practically every weapon the military relies on, and he's made a strong bid to slash intelligence funding...
...Special interests...
...This year when Democratic elites turned against the war, Kerry suddenly adopted an antiwar position, explaining his vote for the war resolution as merely a vote to "threaten" Iraq, not invade...
...It didn't need to...
...Some people say the bear is tame...
...Unless Bush stumbles badly, the next phase will be his...
...The Federal Reserve figures on 1.5 million to 2 million...
...Reagan would pursue peace through strength...
...Indeed, the Kerry phase may last through Super Tuesday on March 2, and there's nothing the president or his campaign team can do about it...
...The charge that Bush shirked National Guard duty in Alabama in 1972 and 1973 didn't catch on in the 2000 campaign, but now it has touched off a press feeding frenzy...
...There's always Iraq, where everything depends on the turnover of sovereignty on July 1. If it goes well—which means neither civil war nor anarchy—the Iraq issue will remain a positive for the president...
...Gay marriage...
...Other ads do too, notably ones with clips from the fevered, over-the-top attacks on Bush by Al Gore ("betrayed the country"), Wesley Clark ("not patriotic"), and Howard Dean ("the enemy...
...The primaries will end in a few weeks and the Kerry phase of the campaign will fade...
...By talking tough, Kerry hopes to scare Bush off...
Vol. 9 • February 2004 • No. 23
