Kerry's New Call to Arms
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Battle Plan: Kerry was to spend the fall on the economy. Then came a new team of advisers—and a fresh focus for the homestretch
By Richard Wolffe and Susannah Meadows
Newsweek
Sept. 27 issue - Sitting in his black-leather swivel chair, with his trusty world atlas beside him, John Kerry huddled with his aides in the executive-style cabin at the front of his campaign jet. Kerry was preparing to accuse the president of failing to tell the truth about "the mess in Iraq"—part of an aggressive fall strategy to challenge George W. Bush on the war. But before he spoke to the National Guard convention in Las Vegas, Kerry sought the advice of yet another sounding board on his plane: former four-star general Wes Clark. Kerry knew from Vietnam what it felt like to face the bullets without the support of the folks back home. So how, one of his senior staff wanted to know, would Kerry's attacks go down now with the troops in Iraq? "Look, the soldiers are debating it themselves on the ground," Clark reassured Kerry's inner circle. "They're coming back and they're incredibly critical. You have to call it like it is."
After the summer's phony war over Vietnam medals and memos, the 2004 election has landed in the real-world battleground of Iraq. For Camp Kerry, it's a liberating feeling to engage in straight talk about Iraq, shaking off debate about the candidate's Senate votes. "I'm thrilled," said one of Kerry's longtime loyalists, "because it's the John Kerry I know and love." Kerry's gambit: to revive his campaign—trailing by anywhere between one and 13 points in new polls—by questioning Bush's credibility on the conflict, his management of postwar Iraq and the no-bid contracts won by his veep's old firm, Halliburton. Kerry is betting that the hard truths of Iraq will undercut Bush's soft-focus picture of a liberated nation, and ultimately the president's image as a war leader.
It's a bet that Kerry was unwilling to make until this month. Not so long ago, Kerry's strategists planned to spend the fall talking about the economy and health care, thinking they had proved their candidate's national-security credentials in Boston. They also planned to stay positive, shunning political attacks in the belief that slime could alienate swing voters. But that was before Kerry's August swoon, and an influx of fresh faces—a mix of Boston loyalists and Clintonites—at the top of the Democrat's team. Their main job is to keep Kerry on message and sharpen his attack on Bush. While Kerry will continue to hit at the Democrats' traditional pocketbook issues, his new strategists have embraced Clark's advice to tell it like it is. They also found a way to bring the war home, saying Bush's go-it-alone approach had cost billions of dollars that could have been spent on jobs, schools and health care. Kerry now intends to repeat and refine his critique through the rest of the campaign—spending, NEWSWEEK has learned, the closing week of the election on Bush's war.
The reaction from Camp Bush was gleeful. "Good," said one senior Bush aide. "We're glad he's talking about Iraq." It remains Exhibit A in the flip-flopping case against Kerry, built around his prewar nuances and his postwar votes. Moreover, the Bush campaign sees Kerry's attacks as a sign of weakness and as an attempt to shore up his base—a leftward tilt that could alienate "persuadables" in battleground states. Bush's advisers are confident that their candidate can win any contest of straight talk, pointing to a series of polls that give him a big lead on questions of honesty and consistency. And Bush is certainly bullish on the subject on the stump. "We'll help them get their elections, we'll get them on the path to stability and democracy as quickly as possible, and then our troops will return home with the honor they have earned," he told one rally in St. Cloud, Minn., last week. Yet back in Washington, Bush quietly receives considerably less glossy weekly national-security briefings on Iraq. In their candid moments, the president's aides concede they have struggled to convince voters about the mission in Iraq now that Saddam Hussein is sitting in jail. "Well, no, I don't think they know what it is," said one senior Bush strategist.
Kerry argues that only a new president can change the dynamic in the region, bringing in new international troops as well as the support of Arab nations. But the candidate is rarely succinct about his plans. Bush and Cheney pounced on Kerry's long-winded response to Don Imus last week, suggesting that even the popular radio host, who likes Kerry, was unpersuaded by his policy. The president's surrogates went one step further, accusing Kerry of adopting a "defeatist" position that was weakening American resolve in the war. Kerry's aides counter that such Bush attacks have run their course. "The flip-flop tag has already been priced into the market," one senior staffer said. "Bush's failure in Iraq hasn't."
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