[Mb-civic] Kerry Staying safe Economist

Fri Jul 30 10:57:47 PDT 2004

Staying safe

Jul 30th 2004 
>From The Economist Global Agenda

John Kerry produced no surprises in accepting his nomination as the
Democratic candidate for the presidency, but gave a solid speech outlining
the ways in which he differs from George Bush. Now comes the Republican
counter-attack

Get article background

AP

JOHN KERRY had promised to deliver a ³surprise² in his speech to accept the
Democratic nomination for the American presidency. He was surprisingly
animated, surprisingly sweaty and received a surprisingly enthusiastic
reception. But, ultimately, the senator from Massachusetts kept to the
script. As expected, his theme was ³strength².

 In the public mind, the Democrats have long trailed the Republicans on
national security. And this has been perceived as a big disadvantage since
the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001. The party did itself no favours
on this score by nominating as its candidate for president a senator from
one of the nation¹s more liberal states who has one of the most liberal
voting records in the Senate.

 But Mr Kerry is a Vietnam war hero, a fact that perhaps only a few farmers
in Mongolia still do not know. And during a week of build-up at the
Democratic convention in Boston, speakers‹from his fellow politicians to
retired generals and a man whose life he saved in Vietnam‹reaffirmed the new
Democratic nominee¹s valour and boldness. A nine-minute video, made with the
help of Steven Spielberg, hammered home the same theme just before Mr
Kerry¹s acceptance speech on Thursday night.

Finally, it was the candidate¹s own turn. Mr Kerry stepped up to the podium,
saluted and said: ³I¹m John Kerry and I¹m reporting for duty.² For the next
45 minutes, he played the good soldier‹all part of a blatant attempt to move
to the centre, or even on to Republican ground. Early in his speech, he
thanked his parents for showing him the value of ³family, faith and
country², words more commonly found coming out of the mouths of Republicans.

He also borrowed Republican language when he turned directly to the war on
terror and in Iraq. ³We are a nation at war,² he said. ³I will wage this war
with the lessons I learned in warŠI will never hesitate to use force when it
is required.² Like his running mate, John Edwards, the night before, he
spoke directly to the terrorists, echoing a tactic of George Bush¹s: ³You
will lose, and we will win. The future does not belong to fear; it belongs
to freedom.² More concretely, he said he would double the size of America¹s
special forces and add 40,000 regular troops.

 But while seeking to win advantage in a traditionally Republican area, Mr
Kerry was careful to draw distinctions between his style and that of Mr
Bush. To American troops he said: ³You will never be asked to fight a war
without a plan to win the peace,² a swipe at the Bush administration¹s poor
post-war planning in Iraq. And in perhaps the most biting line of the night,
on energy policy, he said: ³I want an America that relies on its ingenuity
and its innovation, not the Saudi royal family.² With titles like ³House of
Bush, House of Saud² currently filling American bookshops, that line will
resonate with those disinclined to trust the president.

Most importantly, Mr Kerry criticised Mr Bush for squandering the world¹s
unity with America after the September 11th attacks. Reversing Machiavelli¹s
dictum, he said ³we need to be looked up to, not just feared.² He promised
to increase foreign involvement, both military and financial, in
reconstructing Iraq. If he were elected president, this would prove a
challenge, given the reluctance shown by Europeans to have anything to do
with a war most of them opposed. But Mr Kerry is confident he can pull it
off. ³There is a right way and a wrong way to be strong,² he declared. But
he was also keen to counter accusations that he is a woolly multilateralist
who would let other countries trample on America¹s national interest,
insisting he would ³never give any nation or institution a veto over our
national security².

On domestic policy, Mr Kerry similarly failed to offer any surprises. He
repeated a few of his swipes against the outsourcing of American jobs
overseas. And he once again touted his plan to extend health-care coverage
to far more Americans, saying he would roll back Mr Bush¹s tax cuts for the
richest to pay for it. While his numbers may not exactly add up on this
score, the crowd lapped it up. This was not like Al Gore¹s failed claim to
be the champion of the ³people versus the powerful² during the 2000 election
campaign. Instead Mr Kerry said that the middle class was being squeezed for
the benefit of the rich.

The Republicans will not stand by and let Mr Kerry and his party enjoy the
traditional ³bounce² in the polls given by the convention. Already they have
set up a rapid-response team, complete with a website,
DemsExtremeMakeover.com. The name is taken from a reality television show in
which women undergo plastic surgery, make-up jobs, haircuts and a clothing
upgrade. The message is obvious: the Democrats are so ideologically bankrupt
that they need the equivalent of political plastic surgery to make
themselves look like Republicans, and therefore palatable to ordinary
Americans. Polls suggest that the Republicans¹ charges of ³flip-flopper²
against Mr Kerry have stuck.

Mr Kerry ended his acceptance speech with this optimistic line: ³The hope is
there. The sun is rising. Our best days are yet to come.² But a cynic might
have put it like this: Mr Bush is out there, his will to defeat the
challenger is rising, and the toughest days are yet to come. Mr Kerry may
yet get his bounce in the polls. But he cannot afford to rest on his laurels
as the Republicans gear up their own campaign.