John Kerry's Silent Spring - Time magazine's Joe Klein

[question everything]

http://www.time.com/time/election2004/columnist/klein/article/0,18471,612297,00.html


A few weeks ago, the Bush campaign launched a negative television ad that many Democratic consultants thought was pretty clever. It featured ancient, goofy Keystone Kops footage and suggested, not too subtly, that John Kerry was pretty goofy too: he supported a 50¢-a-gal. gas tax. Leave aside the fact that this was not quite accurate&—Kerry's support for the tax was fleeting, theoretical and a decade past&—the ad was sharp, different-looking, sort of humorous. The consultants assumed it would cut through the info-smog of political-message mongering, that it would make Kerry seem laughably out of touch.

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But Kerry isn't exactly thriving either. His campaign is experiencing something of a silent spring. Part of this is beyond his control and possibly beneficial to his cause: Iraq and the 9/11 commission have dominated the news and kept the President on the defensive. Another part has been tactical, intentional: Kerry's recent priorities have been fund raising (he brought in $13 million last week alone) and taking time to develop a careful strategy for the general-election campaign. "We're not going to allow George Bush or the press to dictate the pace of our campaign," an aide said. An advertising blitz will begin next week, and a series of substantive speeches has been launched. The last was on fiscal responsibility; the next will be about the "jobs and the industries of the future." But I suspect there's another reason for Kerry's decided lack of fizz since the primaries ended. This is just not a very fizzy candidacy.

There is an odd confusion of style and philosophy here. Bush is bold to the point of recklessness&—a quality conservatives usually associate with liberalism&—whereas Kerry is cautious to a fault, a stylistic reactionary. Most successful presidential campaigns sail into Washington on a gust of fresh talent. In 1992 Bill Clinton was surrounded by new faces, from his rowdy team of political consultants to the New Democrat policy wonks who produced his agenda. Kerry, however, is engulfed by the sort of people Howard Dean railed against: timid congressional Democratic staff members and some of the old Clinton crowd, less hungry now, less rowdy, too rutted in past successes to try anything new. There are precious few sharp young people in positions of responsibility and&—very strange for a Democrat&—no prominent blacks or Latinos in the inner circle either. Kerry's may be the most sclerotic presidential campaign since Bob Dole's.

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