WSJ: In a Risky Move, Kerry Shifts Focus to Iraq From Economy

[question everything]

Plan of Attack

In a Risky Move, Kerry Shifts Focus to Iraq From Economy

As War Gets Messy, Democrat Challenges the President On Republican Turf

Bush Derides 'Mixed Signals'

By JACOB M. SCHLESINGER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 23, 2004; Page A1

WASHINGTON -- A month ago, Iraq was one of John Kerry's biggest political liabilities. His campaign had decided to play down the Iraq war to focus on issues that seemed more favorable to Democrats: the economy, jobs and voters' health-care anxieties. Now all that has changed: Mr. Kerry sees Iraq and more broadly the war on terror as essential to his hopes for capturing the White House, having given three major speeches on the subject in the past three weeks.

(snip)

During internal pre-Labor Day deliberations, the Kerry team urged him to move away from an earlier plan to focus largely on the economy during the campaign's final phase, calculating that ceding so prominent an issue as the war to the president was a likely path to defeat. Played right, they felt, the issue could actually shake up the race in their favor. They also persuaded him to shed his summer strategy of avoiding direct attacks on President Bush... The Kerry camp will seek to sever the Iraq war in the public's mind from the broader war on terror, where polls give Mr. Bush an edge. And the Kerry camp now sees a need to refurbish the candidate's national-security credentials tarnished during the Swift Boat controversy. In sum, Mr. Kerry is attempting a delicate balance: energizing antiwar voters by criticizing the invasion, while comforting security-conscious voters by arguing he could better manage the fallout.

(snip)

Iraq had become a metaphor for everything that had gone wrong with the Kerry campaign: a fuzzy message and a defensive posture against the incumbent. It was time to rethink the strategy. So as the candidate huddled with his expanded set of advisers in late August and early September, they decided to make Iraq the metaphor for how they would try to turn the campaign around. Former Clinton aides -- such as onetime White House spokesmen Joe Lockhart and Mike McCurry, campaign strategist James Carville, and pollster Stan Greenberg -- advocated an edgier tone.

Iraq also became the framework for Mr. Kerry to offer a more cohesive message about his laundry list of complaints about the Bush administration, including: its veracity (playing on questions about prewar intelligence and the rationale for war); its ideological bent (blaming "extremist" neoconservative hawks for pushing the war); its competence (saying officials hadn't planned enough for the occupation) and its fiscal policy (blaming the war's cost for inflating the deficit and forcing cuts in domestic programs). Iraq even became the door to get to the desired economic messages. "Two hundred billion dollars -- that is what we are spending in Iraq because George Bush chose to go it alone," Mr. Kerry says in a new TV ad unveiled earlier this week. "Now the president tells us we don't have the resources to take care of health care and education here at home."

(snip)

--John Harwood contributed to this article.

Write to Jacob M. Schlesinger at [e-mail]

URL for this article:

[peacetalksforall]

1. So that is why operative T Russert was up early and on MSNBC...

saying that with women 19-49 (or thereabouts), terror was the most important thing and the * scores way over Kerry on terrorism, but behind Kerry on the economy.

So who acted first. Must have been Kerry, me thinks.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. How is this a risky move? It's not like Iraq is going anywhere.

geez. The body count continues.

[MrBenchley]

3. The follow-up to their earlier story:

In a Risky Move, Kerry Shifts Focus to Economy From Iraq

And watch for their follow up next week:

"In a Risky Move, Kerry Shifts Focus to Economy From Iraq"

[jwirr]

4. Kerry can do both

at the same time. It is the spending on the Iraq war that is diverting money from economic concerns. They cannot be separated.

[Iceburg]

5. Low Risk. Cool, calm, deliberate campaign closing .maneuvre..

Kerry has clearly won the battle on domestic issues. And now the final battle - the battle on foreign issues has begun and this my friends is a fight that bush will surely lose at home just as surely as he has lost all credibility with the rest of the world. Kerry's campaign has been planned and executed brilliantly.

[tibbir]

6. I'm so glad to see the shift in Kerry's strategy.

The 1992 elections got so screwed up because the Democrats conceded Iraq to Bush so they could get back to domestic issues. Didn't work then and it won't work now. Domestic spending woes can be leap-frogged over the problem with all of the money required for * to invade and occupy Iraq on his own like he did. It's a win:win for the good guys.