A Kerry message starts to break through

PHOENIX -- For a candidate accused of searching for a message, the challenge was no clearer than it was Friday, as John F. Kerry stood at a podium here outlining his vision for the general election campaign, while a television in the nearby media filing center carried a live broadcast of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld apologizing for US soldiers' abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

Whether it be battle scenes from Fallujah and Najaf, or President Bush in the White House Rose Garden saying he was sorry for the prisoner abuse, or Congress holding hearings to investigate the administration's handling of Sept. 11 terrorist warnings, the presumptive Democratic nominee has sailed into a barrage of news in recent weeks that has threatened his efforts to seize the initiative in the presidential race.

A recent New York Times poll indicated Kerry is leading the race 46 percent to 44 percent, but it also indicated that 61 percent of respondents thought he was telling them what they wanted to hear, not what he believed.

Yet in recent days, there has been evidence that Kerry is not only finding a message, but also an audience. In an address to the Democratic Leadership Council, which prides itself as the party's centrist core, the Massachusetts senator delivered a stinging indictment of the administration's leadership and said that in contrast to Bush, he has been developing plans to deal with major issues confronting Americans. These include ways to expand health care to all Americans, strengthen the economy through public works and tax reform, and improve public education by increasing teacher pay and accountability.

''In the year 2000, when John McCain had him on the run, George Bush made up a slogan, 'Reformer With Results.' And four years later, Americans are still waiting to see the reform, but I'll tell you this: They've had enough of the results," Kerry said to the group in Phoenix.

Two days earlier in Los Angeles, Kerry offered a variant of the theme when asked whether his campaign was adrift. ''George Bush -- sure he can make decisions and lead -- but look at the direction he's taking us," he told reporters during a news conference.

On Friday night in Baton Rouge, La., he tried to turn Bush's heavy fund-raising and massive ad spending against him. ''Have you ever seen anything like this?" he said at a family jambalaya picnic on the grounds of the Governor's Mansion. ''An incumbent president . . . in the month of March unloading $70 million, not to talk about where he can and has led America over the last four years, but just to tell you the other guy is no good. You know why they're doing that? Because he doesn't have a record to run on; he has a record to run away from."

Kerry's three visits garnered heavy coverage in local papers and on local television stations.

Kerry also has taken to the airwaves with a vengeance. His campaign is spending $25 million this month, the largest single purchase of ad time by a presidential candidate, to air two 60-second commercials intended to introduce him to voters in battleground states. He and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, also are conducting a media blitz, sitting for interviews from Ladies' Home Journal and Vanity Fair to Barbara Walters and ''20/20."

''There is so much clutter out there," said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent Washington political analyst. ''But I think Democratic insiders who are panicky about that are first, overreacting, and second, overlooking the potential benefits to Kerry of this clutter. Yes, he can't break through, but that's because the president is on the defensive over 9/11, the Iraq war, and the abuse of the prisoners. . . . I think it's fine, from Kerry's point of view, if the president just stews for a while."

Republicans chuckle at Kerry's recent ad buying, saying it proves that he has no message and must rely on a controlled medium -- a television commercial produced by his campaign -- to try to break through with voters. In the ad, he highlights past efforts to expand health coverage, cut the deficit, and restore the economy, in part by voting for legislation in 1993 that hiked taxes, but that also kicked off a boom that created 23 million jobs during the Clinton administration. ''John Kerry now feels compelled to reintroduce himself and rewrite his own record," said Steve Schmidt, Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman. ''John Kerry didn't lead the fight for children's health care, and his claim that his vote for the largest tax increase in American history created jobs shows that John Kerry doesn't understand how the American economy works."

By contrast, the Kerry campaign says the speech to the Democratic Leadership Council was an expression of Kerry's campaign message as well as a good template to use in the future. Over the course of 38 minutes, he pledged not only to challenge Bush on national security issues, but also to exhibit fiscal discipline and focus on job creation and school improvements. ''If we cut that back to 20 minutes, I think we may have our stump speech," said a top aide, who requested anonymity.

Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.