The Commander in Chief Thing
BARNES, FRED
The Commander in Chief Thing The Democrats decide to fight Bush on national security. BY FRED BARNES IS THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE John Kerry's to lose? After a successful Democratic convention and an...
...So the elder Bush's strength, foreign affairs, was suddenly extraneous...
...Bush will spell out more details in the weeks before the Republican convention, saving the "big nuggets" for his acceptance speech...
...A Kerry adviser is quoted as saying, "Off the record, he did it because of Dean...
...Last week at the convention, the Republican National Committee released an 11-minute tape of Kerry's changing positions on Iraq...
...Democrat George McGovern was a bomber pilot in World War II but suffered a landslide loss in 1972...
...We'll usher in a new era of ownership in America...
...After a successful Democratic convention and an adequate but uninspiring acceptance speech, Kerry would never say so publicly...
...For sure, it doesn't hurt...
...So I think the race is not Kerry's to lose but Bush's to win...
...Kerry first suggested that voting against the $87 billion would be "irresponsible," and doing so would mean "abandoning the troops...
...If the Bush campaign were not so disciplined, it might have aired some of these ads already...
...But Republicans were wrong...
...As you'd expect, the president's advisers insist his vision for a second term will overshadow Kerry's themes...
...Military service didn't do enough for any of them," says a Bush strategist...
...It got him nowhere...
...One thousand days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, America . . . was rolling to victory in World War II...
...After all, his reelect number—the share of the electorate that thinks he deserves another four years—is only 43 percent...
...All Kerry has to do is make himself minimally acceptable...
...Another contrast ad skewers Kerry so effectively, a Bush aide says, "it's painful to watch...
...These forgotten years include Kerry's two decades in the Senate when he was consistently dovish on national security—right up until this past March when he locked up the presidential nomination...
...In 1992, the Cold War was over...
...But nothing piques the interest of reporters like a politician's attempt to play down or hide something...
...But I've been wrong before...
...Bush backed off...
...Because the electorate has changed, and Bush is too controversial...
...Kerry can't complain...
...Democrats and Republicans in 1884, and there wasn't an abundance of swing voters or ticket splitters...
...Bush long ago realized he couldn't run a stay-the-course reelection campaign, standard for successful incumbents from Richard Nixon in 1972 to Ronald Reagan in 1984 to Bill Clinton in 1996...
...Voters didn't care...
...But that's what he and his advisers believe...
...And it's an issue that works better for him than for Kerry...
...Now both Kerry and Bush have vowed to win the war against terrorists...
...Four years earlier, the elder George Bush was bounced from the White House by Clinton despite his brave duty as a pilot in World War II...
...In 1980, President Carter's strategists believed that once voters learned of Reagan's radically conservative views, they'd reject him...
...It's devastating...
...He caves to political expediency...
...So Bush now embarks on a contrast campaign in which he'll use every tool at his disposal—TV ads, his own statements, campaign events, speeches by leading Republicans—to compare himself favorably with Kerry...
...I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as president," Kerry said in his acceptance speech...
...That's Kerry...
...But now Democrats have embraced the issue noisily...
...The Bush campaign always intended to draw a sharp contrast with Kerry on national security and the war on terror...
...Nonsense, responded former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani...
...It won't be that simple...
...It bolsters the Bush case that Kerry can't be trusted...
...Then he voted against the $87 billion...
...In talking up Kerry, Edwards and other Democrats left a 35-year gap in Kerry's biography: from his return from Vietnam to the present...
...The underlying Bush theme, of course, is that Kerry can't be trusted to be a strong leader given his Senate voting record, no matter what he says now or what he did in Vietnam...
...Ticket-splitters have also dipped, from 17 percent in 1988 to 7 to 10 percent now...
...And the final outcome of the president's boldest initiative, the war in Iraq, is uncertain...
...John Edwards, Kerry's vice presidential running mate, was even more explicit about the Vietnam connection...
...The dominant idea was that Kerry's record of bravery as a young naval lieutenant in Vietnam shows he'd be a strong president today...
...Never has a candidate made so much out of so short a military tour of duty...
...Aren't these the traits you want in a commander in chief...
...He's made national security the premier issue of the campaign...
...There's overlap with the two voting blocs...
...One TV spot is expected to contrast Kerry's changing position on the $87 billion appropriation to fund the troops in Iraq...
...He must fight off an unconventional Bush campaign...
...John Kerry and John Edwards will...
...The Bush campaign has already produced ads contrasting Kerry's positions then—voting against weapons systems, supporting cuts in military and intelligence spending, opposing aid to freedom fighters, and attacking President Reagan's hard-line policy toward the Soviet Union—with what he says now, and with Bush's positions...
...In 1980, the circumstances were right for a hard-liner in the White House, not a squishy dove like Carter...
...Bush will rub shoulders with many more retired generals and admirals in New York...
...And Democratic senator Joe Biden makes a similar point, saying Kerry sought "to prove to Dean's guys I'm not a warmonger...
...This will be more like 1884 than 1984," says a senior adviser in the Bush campaign...
...He had two choices in dealing with his Senate record on national security: explain it or ignore it...
...Kerry might have been better off explaining...
...It may be different this time...
...It's now been over one thousand days since the September 11th terrorist attacks changed our nation," Sen...
...But it decided to wait until voters are paying attention...
...This is a peculiar election, and for that reason alone victory is hardly in Kerry's grasp already...
...They claimed he was inappropriately politicizing the 9/11 terrorist attacks...
...He could have said he was traumatized by 9/11...
...Democrats have freed Bush to invoke 9/11 to his heart's content...
...Kerry has skillfully milked his four months in Vietnam for everything it's worth and then some...
...In this new war on terror, we have not yet secured the beachhead...
...But war heroes don't have a great record of political success...
...Besides, political analyst Charlie Cook has studied the undecided and found them to be overwhelmingly anti-Bush...
...Bob Graham of Florida declared in his convention speech...
...Instead, Kerry's sudden emergence as a hawk in the war on terror looks entirely political...
...As luck would have it for Bush, Kerry and Edwards have also turned 9/11 into a major campaign issue...
...That's a dubious proposition—a non sequitur really—but neither Kerry nor any other Democrat was embarrassed about pushing it...
...Like today, the nation was evenly divided between Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...In 1992, Republicans figured the evidence against Bill Clinton—draft dodging, womanizing, no experience in foreign policy—was sufficient to turn off a majority of voters...
...These ads are to be aired sparingly in August, then used with full force after Labor Day...
...Bush's credentials in this war are better than Kerry's, and the case he's mounting against Kerry on national security is strong...
...Kerry is a ripe target...
...Voters may decide old Senate votes or flip-flops on Iraq don't matter, while Kerry's promise to win the war on terror does...
...But now that Kerry has elevated these issues, indeed staked his candidacy on them, it will not seem forced for Bush to concentrate on them...
...The Kerry campaign stressed his supposed strength on this issue—and especially on the war against terror—throughout the convention...
...Do not dare use 9/11 for political purposes," New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer warned...
...Just a few months ago, Democrats criticized Bush angrily for an ad that included a fleeting glimpse of Ground Zero in New York City...
...That won't work for Bush...
...He touched on this in a July 21 speech: "During the next four years, we'll help more citizens to own their health plan, to own a piece of their retirement, to own their own home or their own small business...
...Bush strategists figure that swing voters, once 20 percent of the electorate, are roughly half that now...
...He could have said he'd learned a lot, even changed his mind, since the Cold War...
...The question is how much it really helps his campaign...
...He opted for the second...
...As primary rival Howard Dean gains among Democrats with his anti-Iraq war message, Kerry goes soft and finally opposes the $87 billion...
...The convention begins August 30...
...Kerry has no vision, no plan," one says...
...Kerry was decisive and strong in Vietnam, Edwards said...
...And it may not for Kerry either...
...Nonetheless, Democrats want to have it both ways: They can exploit 9/11, but Bush shouldn't touch the issue...
...So Bush would need almost all of the undecided vote to tilt his way, but normally they wind up voting two-to-one for the challenger...
...But a strong case against Kerry on national security won't necessarily prevail in the election...
...A New Yorker article on Kerry's foreign policy reinforces this conclusion...
...Bush has plenty of material to work with...
...He'll also "pivot" into emphasizing his agenda for a second term...
...But the contrast that's bound to attract more attention is on national security...
...In Boston, Kerry surrounded himself with military brass and former crewmates in Vietnam...
...Their theory is that the country has fundamentally made up its mind that President Bush shouldn't have a second term...
...To win a second term, they relied on the accomplishments of their first term plus their popularity...
...In 1996, Republican Bob Dole contrasted his bravery in World War II with Clinton's avoidance of military service...
Vol. 9 • August 2004 • No. 45
