WEB EXCLUSIVE | THOMAS OLIPHANT
Bush and Kerry's dueling visionsWASHINGTON -- George Bush and John Kerry might as well be speaking to different countries.
In both language and the money behind it (television advertising), Bush speaks to the committed voter and Kerry to the casual voter. President Bush's campaign reflects the standard vision of an America essentially split in two, angry factions divided by culture and ideology. It is an America where to get reelected, the key is motivating your guys to turn out. For that America, the rough stuff is viewed as essential. Senator Kerry's campaign reflects a different vision - of an America that contains a higher percentage of likely voters who aren't sure or who aren't paying rapt attention to the ebb and flow of political events. For that America, a softer, almost introductory sell is viewed as essential. Because it is so continuously on the attack, the Bush message gets the lion's share of media attention. By now, campaign followers are accustomed to hearing that Kerry has in mind enormous income tax increases on top of an enormous gasoline tax increase while he is tearing down the country's defenses and making it easier for terrorists in our midst. My interest is not in accuracy, but rather in the decibel level and amount of cash behind this stuff, both of which are without precedent. Much less attention has been paid to what Kerry has been doing, precisely because it is softer, more methodical, but not - it turns out - without purpose. Just this week, for example, Kerry's voice covers warm people-pictures about the future, a ``can-do people'' creating jobs here instead of overseas, lowering health care costs, and breaking free of imported oil from the Middle East - a nation strong and respected, with a powerful military and effective alliances. There is nearly $20 million behind this one ad. Obviously it is not aimed at blue-state America. It follows nearly a month and even more cash behind two biographical commercials celebrating Kerry's public service, beginning with Vietnam. The ads are similar to the ones that ran in Iowa and New Hampshire last winter when Kerry was almost universally given up for dead against the relentless anti-Bush and anti-other Democrat messages of then-frontrunner Howard Dean. They were widely ignored when they were not widely derided; what was less reported was that they tested off the charts with voters who were just beginning to pay attention to the Democratic race. Now the ads are back, much more lavishly produced and aimed at a fresh audience that has not been following the campaign closely and is ambivalent about its intentions in November. It would not surprise me if this audience of probable voters is at least a third of the eventual electorate. To them, Kerry is simply introducing himself. Even Kerry's negative commercials have been interesting. They are a tiny portion of his budget to date, and most of that money was behind two commercials about Bush's record on the environment. They are six weeks old and date from the period when Kerry was concentrating on raising money; half their content, obviously aimed at true-believing Democrats, contained explicit pitches for cash. The one exception, early last month, involved health care and was timed for a period when Kerry was emphasizing the issue in his public appearances. The ad showed candidate Bush four years ago pledging to make health care more affordable and accessible, against a backdrop of a running count of his days in office that ends with ``Time's Up.'' The contrast between these fairly typical partisan appeals and Bush's attempt to define Kerry as dangerous and extreme could not be greater or more revealing of the deeper disparity in strategies between mobilization and persuasion. The commercials also underscore another largely ignored fact of campaign life, namely that its landscape is anything but formed at this point. Beyond Bush versus Kerry, it is still not clear how much security issues as opposed to pocketbook concerns will dominate. Moreover, it is anything but clear that Kerry can be made the key issue as opposed to the president's record and the condition of the country broadly defined. What does seem clear is that Bush's bet that mobilization is everything has sent him down a road of all-out attack from which it is very difficult to veer once you start. Kerry, on the other hand, has retained considerable flexibility in introducing both himself and his ideas. The Bush assumption is that Kerry is not merely a dangerous left-wing nut but also a dangerous opponent. The Kerry assumption is that he can gradually start a dialogue with a persuadable chunk of the country that is larger than the adherents of the polarization theory of politics realize. The Bush gamble is that Kerry can be crushed. The Kerry gamble is that he can dare to be boring.
Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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