How the Bush team will try to paint Kerry
By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — President Bush's campaign strategists believe "Massachusetts liberal" is a potent political epithet. But they don't think it's enough to defeat Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.
Labeling John Kerry as a "Massachusetts liberal" is just part of the case President Bush will try to make, his aides say.
Wausau (Wis.) Daily Herald via AP
So the Bush team, which believes Kerry has the nomination wrapped up, is preparing a broad attack on his record over 19 years in the Senate and what they call his opportunistic reversals on key issues.
The faceoff between Bush and Kerry has begun extraordinarily early in volleys of press releases and Web videos. It will continue for eight months and signals a long, nasty campaign. Decisions being made now will define the territory on which the campaign is fought and establish competing portraits of the two men.
Already, Republicans are depicting Kerry as a product of Washington, beholden to special interests and out of touch with regular Americans. The "Massachusetts liberal" tag that worked so well when the elder George Bush used it to defeat Gov. Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential race is just part of the case this Bush will try to make, aides say.
The drawback to the Bush strategy is that much of it has been tried before, most recently by Kerry's rivals for the nomination. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean called Kerry "the handmaiden of special interests," and retired general Wesley Clark said he's "part of the problem" in Washington. Those criticisms have not slowed Kerry in the Democratic primaries. But Bush strategists believe that the sustained attack they began last week will take hold with voters and raise doubts. Bush's campaign will have at least $170 million to spend, much of it on TV ads hammering Kerry's record.
Full-force GOP criticism began as soon as Kerry won the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 19. Four days later, Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie declared him "out of sync" with most Americans and one of the "most liberal members" of the Senate.
The first wave of disparagement is an old political tactic: Define your opponent before he defines himself. Bush's strategists want to negate Kerry's self-portrait of a moderate who fights special interests before that picture is rooted in voters' minds.
"Politicians get in a lot of trouble when they present themselves as different than who they really are," says Matthew Dowd, the Bush campaign's chief strategist.
Something personal also is driving the Bush strategy. Some advisers believe the first President Bush dismissed his challenger's chances in his 1992 re-election battle and waited too long to take on Bill Clinton. There will be no repeat of that mistake, they say.
Kerry: 'Bring it on'
Researchers with the Bush campaign and at the Republican National Committee have examined Kerry's tenure as Massachusetts' lieutenant governor from 1982 to 1984, the 6,500 votes he has cast since he was joined the Senate in 1985, his speeches, his campaign donors and his finances. They have studied his last campaign against a Republican, a 1996 victory over William Weld, who was governor of Massachusetts.
They see Kerry as a traditional candidate and expect him to follow a predictable plan. They expect him to take mainstream Democratic positions and avoid both the centrism of Clinton and the leftist populism of Dean. They also hope he follows a historic pattern: No sitting member of Congress has been elected president since John Kennedy — a Massachusetts Democrat — in 1960.
But Bush's team sees plenty to worry about. Kerry, they say, is a relentless campaigner, an adept debater, a candidate with a history of strong finishes. "I didn't think he ever got below the belt," says Weld, who lost 45%-52%. "His instinct is not to be personally offensive. ... I would anticipate a substantive campaign."
Legislative record a target
A dozen Bush insiders in the White House, the campaign and key states described the evolving Bush strategy. Most spoke on condition that they not be named. A preview of their lines of attack:
•Kerry has left no footprint on Capitol Hill. "What's he done?" asks Mary Matalin, a Bush campaign adviser. "He's been on the Hill forever, and what does he have to show for it?"
Dean's campaign did the research and e-mailed the results to reporters: Kerry has sponsored 371 bills. Nine became law and six of those were more ceremonial, such as renaming a federal building, than substantive. The others were two bills related to marine research and one providing grants to women who own small businesses.
Kerry campaign staffers didn't dispute the Dean campaign's information, but they argued that it misrepresented Kerry's record. He teamed with Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona to reopen U.S. relations with Vietnam in 1995, and they are trying to raise fuel-economy standards and make Internet transactions tax-free. He helped stall Bush's plan to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "Sometimes," Kerry said in a debate Jan. 29, "your accomplishments are not in what you get done, but in what you stop other people from doing."
Reality check: Kerry has a short list of laws with his name on them. But interviews with people who had just voted in Democratic primaries found experience ranked near the bottom of considerations that determined their vote. In the 2000 election, experience was less important to voters than honesty.
•He switches positions when it's politically expedient. Kerry voted against the Persian Gulf War in 1991, but in 2002, he voted for a resolution authorizing Bush to go to war against Iraq. His explanation: In 1991, he believed the first Bush administration should take more time to try diplomacy before military action. In 2002, he believed this Bush administration had agreed to pursue diplomacy first.
Kerry voted for Bush's education bill, the No Child Left Behind Act, but now says he'd repeal it because it doesn't work. He voted for the USA Patriot Act, which expanded government power to monitor citizens after the Sept. 11 attacks, but now opposes it as too intrusive. He opposed the death penalty for terrorists who kill Americans abroad but now supports it.
Reality check: Bush's strategists are planning ads focused on some of those things. Campaign manager Ken Mehlman said in an online chat Feb. 9 that Kerry's opposition to Bush's education bill means he wants to "take our nation backward." Some Democrats aligned with other candidates say privately that Kerry will have to come up with better explanations.
•He's on the wrong side of issues that matter most to voters. "We question his judgment in consistently voting to cut defense and intelligence funding critical to our national security," Mehlman says.
After the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Kerry voted to cut spending on intelligence by $1.5 billion over five years. In 1996, he voted to cut defense by $6.5 billion. He has since said that some of those votes were mistakes.
Bush's advisers see vulnerability in Kerry's stand on an emotional and divisive issue: gay marriage. In 1996, Kerry voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned federal recognition of gay marriages and allowed states to refuse to recognize those performed in other states. Kerry opposes gay marriage but supports civil unions and partnership rights.
Reality check: The differences between Bush's priorities and Kerry's are likely to dominate the competition for moderate and independent voters. How this debate plays out will depend on the shape the economy is in, progress in Iraq and whether gay marriage becomes a big campaign issue.
•He's a hypocrite on the Vietnam War. "Hypocrisy is a character issue that we ought to be concerned about," Gillespie said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. The charge is a crucial element of Bush's plan to rebut criticism of his own National Guard service during the Vietnam War. Bush wants to label Kerry, a combat veteran who later opposed the war, a hypocrite. Their case: During a 1971 protest at the U.S. Capitol, Kerry tossed onto the steps his combat ribbons and other veterans' medals, but he kept his own medals. For years, Kerry did not correct the impression that he had discarded his medals in protest.
"Doing something that phony on such a poignant issue of conscience is viscerally unsettling," Matalin says. "What does the capacity to be so calculating say about him?"
Behind the strategy are concerns in Bush's camp about the potential damage of controversy over Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. Although he was honorably discharged, there are questions about how diligent Bush was during his Guard service.
Reality check: This issue is about more than who did what 30 years ago. Kerry hopes his military record will help him counter doubts about his readiness to be commander in chief. Bush aides wish the media would focus on Kerry's past conduct, not on Bush's.
By 1990, 71% of Americans considered the Vietnam War a mistake. That suggests Kerry's opposition after serving may not be a pivotal issue. But questions about both men's conduct are more about character and credibility, qualities that matter in presidential campaigns.
If he wants to make an issue of Bush's military record, Kerry may be hindered by a remark he made in 1992 amid charges that Bill Clinton had dodged the draft. "We do not need to divide America over who served and how," Kerry said.
•He's a captive of special interests. "Special interests' best friend," was the headline on a GOP press release about Kerry this month. In speeches, Kerry warns lobbyists, "We're coming, you're going, and don't let the door hit you on the way out."
But Kerry has raised more money from lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. He received nearly $640,000 from lobbyists for his four Senate campaigns. For this race, Kerry has raised more than $225,000 from lobbyists.
Reality check: Last week, Bush's campaign posted a video ad on its Web site and e-mailed it to supporters. The ad, titled "Unprincipled," recites how much money Kerry's campaigns have received from lobbyists. But that criticism may ring false for Bush, who collects considerable lobbyist donations and whose administration has consulted with special interests on energy, health and tax policies. Kerry's campaign responded with a Web ad that said Bush has "taken more special interest money than anyone in history."
•He's the Democrats' default choice, not an inspirational leader. In a Feb. 4 memo, Bush strategist Dowd called Kerry a "safe, old standby ... a traditional Democratic choice after the thrill of the Dean candidacy wore off."
Reality check: Bush strategists may be counting on a replay of the 1996 campaign. GOP nominee Bob Dole, who like Kerry was a war hero and veteran legislator, generated little excitement and lost to Clinton.
All those points will become familiar themes of Bush's campaign, and he'll still haul out the "Massachusetts liberal" label often. Kerry supports gun control and gay rights. He opposes restrictions on abortion. Bush will emphasize those views to deny him support across the South.
"His problem isn't where he's from, it's where he stands on issues," says Ralph Reed, Bush's campaign chairman for the southeast. "Kerry's record of voting for huge tax increases, opposing a strong defense and undermining our intelligence is out of the mainstream for a majority of voters."
Weld says Bush had better not underestimate Kerry. In the final months of their 1996 campaign, he says, Kerry's campaign "turned on a dime. The ads got sharper, the stump speech got crisper." Weld predicts that "man-to-man combat" lies ahead.
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