KERRY'S STRATEGIC SILENCE. . . .
A bad sign or par for the course?. . . .
05/20 08:35 AM
Was that John Forbes Kerry's face on your milk carton this morning?
Maybe it's not that bad, but close. The Kerry campaign has been keeping things low-profile lately.
Dan Balz and Howard Kurtz wrote in the Washington Post on Wednesday that "from April 1 through last week, the three network newscasts did not run a single report on Kerry's proposals on jobs, education, health care, the environment or other issues he has been hitting on the stump, mentioning them fleetingly just five times."
"Kerry has offered only a few major policy initiatives since wrapping up the primaries and has been inconsistent in delivering the message of the day emanating from his Washington headquarters, according to some Democratic strategists," they report. "Unless he talks about Iraq, his speeches and events are constantly overshadowed or eclipsed in the national media."
Almost every day this spring, the biggest news of the day is related to Iraq, and Kerry has said that he doesn't want to talk about the occupation and violence on a daily basis.
"I want to give the president some space to get things done and see what happens," Kerry said Monday. "I wish the president would lead. He needs to lead, lives are at stake. He needs to be really bold."
The lack of rallying news from the Kerry camp has left time for liberal columnists to get impatient with the candidate.
Eleanor Clift fumed about his lack of rage over the prison abuse on Newsweek's web edition late last week.
"If ever there was a moment for John Kerry to come out swinging, this is it," she wrote. "It is the biggest story of the war, and he is essentially silent.... He voiced boilerplate outrage and accused the administration of being 'slow and inappropriate' in its response.... This is the language of a diplomat when the situation requires a warrior. There are differences between Kerry and Bush on the war, but most people don't see them. The administration's colossal mishandling of Iraq will only boost the Nader vote if Kerry doesn't sharpen his position."
"His audiences waited in vain for a passionate response to the Iraq debacle," laments Joe Klein in the current edition of Time magazine. "Sooner or later, he will have to tell us whether he thinks the war was worth it. He will have to say whether he believes America has a responsibility to restore stability and rebuild Iraq. He will either have to stick with his U.N. plan and hope the international community will support the new Iraqi government with a major peacekeeping effort, or support the premature withdrawal of American troops...."
Klein says Kerry's answer to the pull-out-now crowd will be "the most important decision Kerry makes in this campaign, but it won't be coming soon — and that is very much by design.... If nothing else, Kerry has a sophisticated sense of political timing; he knows how to wait until people are paying attention."
Mary Anne Marsh, a Boston political strategist, has known Kerry ever since she helped guide his 1982 race for lieutenant governor. She believes Kerry's strategists have been "right on the money" about which issues to focus on and the decision to take a quieter approach to the war.
"I think there's a big difference between being on the front page and connecting with voters," Marsh tells NRO. "He's talking about the cost of health care, increasing gas prices. Those are things people worried are about. When people go to fill their tank, they say, 'this is almost half my paycheck.' And most people in this country live paycheck to paycheck. Iraq, they see it in the news, they see it on the front pages, but it's not something they confront every day, or at least not everyone confronts it every day."
Rob Gray, a Republican political consultant in Boston who was communications director for William Weld's race against Kerry in 1996, also says the lack of attention is good news for the Democratic nominee, but for a different reason.
"Kerry may be lucky that there hasn't been a stronger examination of his campaign and record at this point, given his views and his tendency to stick his finger in the wind on everything," Gray says. "More media scrutiny and coverage is not necessarily a good thing."
It's worth recalling that at this time in 2000, Al Gore's campaign was getting similar criticism for a lack of focus and ability to set the agenda. And that was in peace time.
The Los Angeles Times wrote that Gore's campaign had drifted and done little to define his candidacy. Rep. Charles Rangel was publicly fuming to the New York Times that Gore was unfocused and needed to give fiery speeches. The Boston Globe wrote that, "Gore does have a platform, but it is perceived by many voters as a status-quo, preserve-the-prosperity campaign — and the vice president is finding that may not be enough to win."
Gore picked up Joe-mentum when he picked Joe Lieberman as his vice-presidential candidate, made out with Tipper, and gave a fiery populist acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in August.
So Kerry has plenty of time to pick up speed, and the polls appear to show him in somewhat better shape than Gore was at this time in 2000, when the then-Texas Governor led by about five points. But Klein is correct that at some point, Kerry will have to lay out his comprehensive plan for Iraq. On a nationwide stage, he will need to explain how President Kerry would get a solution that President Bush could not, and go beyond private words of support from foreign leaders. He will have to call for sending more troops in, pulling out, or detail his middle option of trying to get NATO to take on "on organizing role" in Iraq. But there's little advantage to laying out a plan when the situation on the ground could change dramatically before Election Day. Kerry will at least wait and see how the June 30 handover goes.
But Marsh has a warning for candidates who might grow comfortable with a lower profile during the long stretch between the end of the primaries and the Democratic convention at the end of July.
"Everyone is always paying attention to a degree, and as a candidate you are being defined every day," Marsh said. "Either you're defining yourself, or someone is defining you for you. It's like painting by numbers. Every day, another little piece gets filled in."
Gray agrees.
"Right now he's the anti-Bush and nothing more," he said. "I don't think that gets him to a win, and it certainly won't get him to a win once some of those people who don't know much about him at this point find out about his true record and manner."
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