Bush, Kerry turn focus on wartime leadership

Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry left Boston with a tailwind at his back and a challenge before him, one he willingly embraced in his acceptance speech at the FleetCenter: Persuade American voters to change their commander in chief at a time of war in an increasingly dangerous world.

For the next 94 days, the campaigns of Kerry and President George W. Bush will argue facts and statistics, debating minutiae and nuance at times, as they try to gain any edge. But the overarching theme of this campaign will almost certainly be the intangible quality of leadership at a perilous point in history.

In his acceptance speech, Kerry declared, ''I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war," telling terrorists: ''You will lose, and we will win."

Within hours, the president was on the stump in Missouri, saying: ''I have a clear vision of how to win the war on terror and bring peace to the world."

Conventions like the Democrats' last week in Boston and the Republicans' in four weeks in New York provide plenty of carefully choreographed images and messages of the standard-bearers who hope to lead the country for the next four years.

For four days in Boston, the campaign played up Kerry's leadership as a decorated swift boat commander in Vietnam. The nominee and a parade of other Democrats told conventioneers about plans not only to strengthen the nation's defense and diplomatic standing in the world, but also offered a long list of new domestic initiatives, including tax incentives for job creation, an increase in the minimum wage, and an expansion of programs in the areas of health care, education, and alternative energy source development. Except for rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy and closing some corporate tax loopholes, however, the source of funds for these remains unclear at a time of a record federal budget deficit, which Kerry pledged to cut in half in a first term as president.

Bush, meanwhile, hit the road Friday to begin unfurling a second-term domestic agenda and tout differences with Kerry on abortion rights and a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. These will undoubtedly be themes at his convention. But Bush, too, is constrained by a budget projected to be $445 billion in the red this year. Nevertheless, his tax cuts will remain in place, Bush vowed. ''We're turning the corner, and we're not turning back," he said.

But with so much riding on the perception of which man can best navigate in troubled times, the orchestrated events of conventions and stump speeches are less likely to affect the outcome of this election than a series of debates in the fall, veteran politicos said.

No matter how much they prepare, candidates cannot completely script debate performances. The electorate is sure to see moments of spontaneity or drama that reveal some essence of the candidates that hasn't been packaged in a television ad or a press release.

''Unless this breaks open early, the debates are going to be decisive," said David Gergen, a professor and administrator at Harvard's Kennedy School and a former White House adviser to four presidents -- three Republicans and one Democrat. Kerry must use the debates with Bush to ''get into the zone of acceptability as an alternative," Gergen said. ''He has to clear that bar. He's not quite there yet."

''The debates are going to be the turning point in this campaign, for either side," agreed Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who managed Bob Dole's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1996. ''The undecided vote is smaller this year, and people are waiting to see these two meet man-to-man. Whoever wins the debates will win the election."

''I fundamentally believe that this election will be decided in the debates," said Susan Estrich, who managed the unsuccessful Democratic campaign of Michael Dukakis in 1988. ''People are waiting to hear from Kerry. All he needs to do is offer people something that makes them confident he is not a risk, that he has a plan for the future and he can be trusted," said Estrich, now a law professor at the University of Southern California and a television commentator.

In many ways, this election resembles that of 1980, when Ronald Reagan unseated Jimmy Carter, according to Alan Schroeder, a Northeastern University professor who has studied the effect of televised debates on national elections. Carter was beset by a moribund economy and a hostage crisis in Iran. Reagan was often portrayed as right-wing warmonger.

''The 1980 debate probably allowed Reagan to cross that threshold of plausibility," said Schroeder, author in 2000 of ''Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk TV." ''That debate allowed him to define himself, personally at least, as moderate," Schroeder said.

In a series of three tentatively scheduled presidential debates, the incumbent this year will enjoy ''top billing, a position of power and strength that comes with the office," Schroeder said. ''But he will also have to defend a record."

The challenger, he said, ''doesn't have to defend a White House record, and is in a much better position to critique the president's position."

Debates also tend to moderate the distortions of paid advertising, he said.

''When you have two men side by side on the stage, they have to be more reasonable than some disembodied commercial where you can throw any kind of hand grenade you want," said Schroeder.

The debates are tentatively scheduled to begin Sept. 30 in Miami and continue Oct. 8 in St. Louis and Oct. 13 in Tempe, Ariz. A single debate between Vice President Dick Cheney and Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, has been scheduled for Oct. 5 in Cleveland.

Around those major campaign events, there will be a record-shattering amount of money spent on advertising that targets a relatively small segment of the electorate that polls show is ''persuadable." Nearly all of it -- perhaps several hundred million dollars -- will be spent in 20 or more key states that will tip the electoral college.

Money was supposed to be a problem for Kerry but may not be now. Both campaigns will accept $74.7 million in public funds to conduct the general election campaign, but the Democrat has to spread his allotment over five additional weeks because Bush will not be renominated until Sept. 2. The Democratic National Committee, however, this weekend launched a $6 million weeklong ad campaign in 21 states and national cable networks to boost their nominee, whose campaign is curtailing TV ads in August. A single spot is on the air, based on Kerry's convention speech, but several others have been produced for future use.

Democratic National Committee officials have said they may spend up to $100 million to air ads supporting Kerry through an in-house ''independent expenditure" that by law may not be coordinated either with Kerry's campaign or committee personnel who work with the nominee's staff. Republicans have not yet decided whether to match the Democratic effort, though preliminary legal steps have been taken to set up a unit that could produce similar independent ads.

So-called 527s, named for the tax code section that governs politically active nonprofit groups, are also supplying advertising in support of the candidates -- most of it, to this point, by pro-Democrat groups.

On the air and ground, the campaigns will continue the themes of a contentious campaign that began five months ago, each trying to define the race on its own terrain.

The Democrats will contend that Bush has blundered in his handling of Iraq and the economy and is dividing the country with his policies.

The Republicans will counter that the president is a strong, resolute commander-in-chief in a war on terrorism. Kerry's record demonstrates he has been a vacillator during nearly 20 years in the Senate, they argue. Bush, for example, said on Friday that Kerry has had ''thousands of votes but very few signature achievements" in the Senate.

Strategically, the incumbent is trying to make Kerry the issue, the GOP's Reed said.

''Any presidential reelection campaign is a referendum on the incumbent, and the Bush campaign's challenge is still to define Kerry in a way that makes him unacceptable as an alternative," he said. ''They've been trying to nail him as a liberal and a flip-flopper, which polling data shows has some staying power."