Kerry faces fight on security

DETROIT -- The Democratic front-runner is a decorated war hero who, if he does get the nomination, would run against a commander in chief whose military record has come under question. But Republicans, emboldened by their defeat of another honored Vietnam veteran, former senator Max Cleland, believe they can beat John F. Kerry the same way they did Cleland in Georgia two years ago -- by attacking the Democrat's record on national security.

Republican officials have been careful not to attack Kerry's record in Vietnam, and indeed make a point of voicing their respect for the Massachusetts senator's military service. But party officials and operatives have been assembling a list of Kerry's past votes and comments on weapons systems and other defense programs, trying to build a political case that a Navy lieutenant who in his younger days won three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star has become a lawmaker who is weak on defense.

House majority leader Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, went out of his way in recent comments to reporters to cite a Kerry vote in the Senate against increased spending for intelligence gathering. "I'm not questioning his patriotism," DeLay said. "I'm questioning his judgment."

Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie told fellow Republicans at their winter meeting this month that Kerry's military record is honorable, but "his policy positions belie that his approach . . . will make us safer." Gillespie pointed to Kerry's votes against the first Gulf war and various weapons systems, and for cutting the number of submarines.

Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, was defeated after Republicans attacked his national security credentials because he voted against legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security. Cleland, like many Democrats, wanted the bill revised to preserve union protections for some government workers.

Now, Cleland is traveling the country to help Kerry win the Democratic nomination, positioning his wheelchair beside Kerry at campaign events in a show of support for a fellow veteran. But Cleland also sees the presidential campaign as a chance to pay back Republicans because their Senate nominee, Saxby Chambliss, ran television ads in Georgia showing Cleland's face beside Osama bin Laden's and Saddam Hussein's.

"They slimed John McCain in South Carolina, they slimed me, and they're going to spend $200 million to slime John Kerry," Cleland said in an interview while campaigning for Kerry in Michigan. He referred to attacks on McCain, a senator from Arizona, during the Republican presidential primaries in 2000.

In his case, Kerry said he was prepared for the anticipated Republican attacks and predicted he would not be defeated because of them. "Max didn't fight back. I'm going to fight back. They can't do the same thing to me," Kerry said in an interview.

While he did vote against weapons systems he considered wasteful, he also voted for "enormous defense budgets," Kerry said.

"There's much more that defines the strength of our country. It is much more than what the big weapons system is," including funds to confront such "national security" challenges as AIDS, he said.

Since the Vietnam era, Republicans have polled higher than the Democrats on the issues of national security and defense. In the 1988 presidential race, the GOP was able to turn those issues against another Massachusetts Democrat, Michael S. Dukakis, and Republican strategists believe they will be especially potent this year because of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Even though images of Kerry in combat send a strikingly different message than the much-ridiculed image of Dukakis in a tank on the campaign trail, conservatives say that Republicans can still persuade voters that Kerry is lax on defense issues.

"Many of the weapons that have been used in Afghanistan and Iraq, John Kerry voted against," said Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant. "If he voted against the key military weapons systems that have been effective in the war on terror, it's perfectly legitimate to question his judgment on national defense votes."

Kerry's votes on Iraq are mixed, said Alfred S. Regnery, publisher of The American Spectator, a conservative magazine. Kerry voted for the resolution authorizing force against Iraq in October 2002, but last year opposed $87 billion in extra funding mostly for Iraq and Afghanistan.

DeLay and other Republicans have cited what they said was Kerry's failure to support increased funding for intelligence, an attack that could be used to counter his criticism of the intelligence used to justify the Iraq war.

"The fact that he's a war hero is to his credit, but I don't think it can save him on this issue," Regnery said.

Kerry frequently mentions Vietnam, in one word reminding voters of his own service, but has shied away from attacking Bush directly on his record in the National Guard. On Tuesday, the White House tried to still questions about whether Bush fulfilled his commitment by releasing pay and duty records from 1972 and 1973. But those military records conflict with others that indicate he was absent for nearly a year.

Before Tuesday, some of Kerry's supporters had been blunt in criticizing Bush on his National Guard record.

"He was AWOL. He was down there drinking beers in Alabama, and John Kerry's out there fighting a war. He's got scars to show his patriotism," said Keith D. Williams, a Wayne County commissioner who attended a breakfast with Kerry in Warren, Mich.

In the face of any Republican attacks on Kerry's record on national security, Cleland said, Democrats could redefine the issue to focus on the treatment of veterans. Kerry, if his voting record is attacked, can go after Bush for providing what Cleland said was inadequate benefits and health care for veterans.

Kerry has throughout the Democratic primaries attracted the support of many veterans, including those who served with him in Vietnam, and has been banking on that support to win him votes in the military-friendly South and attract votes from some Republicans.

"Kerry not only was a veteran, but when he came back, he had a good reason to question the war," said Republican Howard Mikkelsen, a 71-year-old Korean War veteran who attended a Kerry rally in Portland, Maine.