Kerry speech to emphasize national securityIt is the foremost political issue of the day as John F. Kerry goes before his most important national television audience tonight: The US occupation of Iraq and the casualties among 140,000 American troops there. But while Kerry plans to devote nearly half of his remarks tonight to national security, his advisers say he does not plan to unveil an exit strategy or ambitious, detailed plans to replace the Iraq policy being followed by President Bush.
While the two candidates have clear differences on Iraq and most other foreign and domestic issues, Kerry has made a strategic choice to stick with his controlled, cautious campaign strategy of trumpeting familiar themes of alliance-building, a stronger military, and better relations with the United Nations -- ideas that have united Democrats around him, but have done little to excite swing voters or to draw them into his camp. ''Millions of people are waiting to hear his specific game plan on Iraq, but his rhetoric about gaining international respect and going back to the UN for support has left people wondering: What ends will Kerry achieve?" said Jennifer Duffy, a longtime Kerry watcher and Senate analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. ''Does he have an exit strategy? How does he get Muslim troops into Iraq, as he wants? Voters want those kinds of specifics, but he has been so reluctant to offer them." Campaign officials, who offered a rough outline yesterday of the themes in Kerry's planned 50-minute nomination speech, said Kerry hopes to burnish his credentials as commander in chief by devoting roughly half of his remarks to national security. He plans to use tonight's introduction by fellow Vietnam veterans -- including one whose life he saved in battle -- to cast himself as a strong, unflinching leader in a time of war. Yet Kerry worries that unfolding news events, like the killing of scores yesterday in Iraq and the looming threat from the terrorist group Al Qaeda, could leave him boxed in if he stakes out hard positions on security similar to those he has denounced as inflexible and ideological under Bush. ''Kerry may be in Chapter 18 of the campaign after a year on the trail, but this convention really represents Chapter 1 -- introducing Kerry to a lot of people who haven't heard word one from us, who haven't heard about his vision of a strong foreign policy and his solutions for the middle-class squeeze in the economy," said a senior Kerry adviser who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because Kerry has directed his lieutenants to keep tonight's address a surprise. ''It is not the time to lay out a new or detailed action plan on Iraq or on other issues." According to recent voter surveys, Kerry has yet to sculpt an overarching message that excites the narrow band of voters -- 5 to 10 percent of the likely electorate -- who are concerned about national security and the war on terror and remain undecided about whom to support. In nearly all of his recent speeches, he has called on Independents and conservatives to support his plans for reducing the deficit, continuing the Bush tax cuts for middle-income Americans, and strengthening historic US alliances with European nations and extending them to Muslim countries. Yet there has been little resulting movement in Kerry's poll numbers, increasing pressure on him to make a breakthrough with tonight's speech. ''One of the great immediate questions for Kerry is: How do you reach out to Republican voters and, as president, to a Congress that may be in Republican hands -- and he has yet to give a clear answer," said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a Democratic-leaning think tank. ''The Washington atmosphere is so toxic, he won't be successful unless he shows he can work with all parties and have a broad appeal. Maybe that means appointing Republicans to Cabinet posts. But he needs to hone his message to show he is a national leader who has bipartisan appeal." Seeking to appeal to independents, undecided women, and voters who backed Bush in 2000 but are ambivalent about a second term, Kerry needs to erase his Republican-drawn image as a flip-flopper on Iraq and higher taxes, as well as to show a personal likableness that sometimes fails to come across to a television audience, according to political analysts and polls of likely voters. Analysts said he must strive for an eloquence that at times eludes him, but that he showed 33 years ago in his antiwar testimony to the Senate Foreign Relation Committee, when he posed the question about Vietnam: ''How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Above all, analysts said, he needs to establish himself as worthy of the White House and the leadership of the free world, assuming the mantle of the Democrats' master orator, Bill Clinton, and turning the generalities of campaign rhetoric into clear images and ideals for which he stands. ''His 1971 Vietnam speech is a gold standard that we may or may not meet Thursday night," said another campaign adviser working on the speech, who said that Kerry's aides were whittling down sentences -- given Kerry's penchant for wordy clauses -- to achieve pithy flourishes along the lines of Clinton's crowd-pleasing snippet at the convention Monday night: ''Strength and wisdom are not opposing values." The Kerry campaign also offered a preview of the nine-minute movie that will air tonight, introducing the nominee. Produced by Steven Spielberg protege James Moll, the film opens with scenes of Kerry's childhood, recounts his education at prep school and Yale University, and then concentrates on his service as a naval officer during the Vietnam War. The movie is laced with footage from Kerry's tour as a Swift boat commander and retells his rescue of an Army Green Beret, narrated by the soldier, James Rassmann. ''Had he not come out on that bow like that, I'd be dead," Rassmann says. Kerry has set two goals for his speech: to tell his life story in dramatic terms for television viewers who may not know him well, and to draw clear differences on leadership, vision, and policy with Bush while not descending into attack mode. As his plane flew into Boston yesterday, Kerry appeared to have a bounce in his step, and there was no sign of nervousness. As the plane broke through the clouds, he looked out the window and remarked about ''the nice Boston mist." He popped his head into the reporters' cabin as the plane descended and said, ''Welcome home, welcome to the Super Bowl," clapping his hands. On the way back to his seat, he stepped on the home plate between the staff compartment and his compartment -- the home plate from Iowa's ''Field of Dreams" baseball diamond. As the door opened after landing, he quipped, ''Lock and load -- let's go."
Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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