Democrats outsmart themselves

It was not supposed to be this way. On Sunday, there were no fewer than four Op-Ed pieces, just in the New York Times, offering campaign advice to Sen. John Kerry. This flood of unsolicited advice has been rising for weeks. At this point in the 2004 campaign, pundits were supposed to be offering Kerry advice on how to govern the country. Instead, the advice is about how Kerry can get back into the campaign.

Some recent polls make the presidential race very close. The most recent polls, however, from Gallup and from CBS, show the president with a clear lead. Even more troubling for Kerry is the recent state polling data. Some polls put George W. Bush ahead in New Jersey. If that’s the case three weeks from now, it’s all over. Bush is comfortably ahead in New Hampshire, Arizona, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada and West Virginia, all states the Kerry campaign had high hopes of taking away from Bush.

Let us be clear: Kerry might yet win all of these states, and might yet win the election, perhaps comfortably. Having said that, I would much rather be Bush right now than Kerry.

How bad are things for the Kerry campaign? In the CBS poll, respondents were asked whom they thought is going to win, regardless of how they are going to vote. Over 60 percent listed Bush as their expected winner. In the same poll, Kerry and Bush supporters were asked if they are voting more in favor of their candidate, or against someone else. A solid 91 percent of Bush’s supporters are just that: Bush supporters. A shocking 31 percent of Kerry supporters are primarily interested in beating someone else. What has become clear during these challenging weeks for the Democrats is that Kerry does not inspire much personal loyalty or committed energy.

The Democrats, and Kerry, are where they are because they outsmarted themselves. It was the Democratic Party that came up with a “front-loaded” primary schedule that ended up creating a nominee before most rank-and-file Democrats became committed to that nominee. And it was John Kerry who decided to run against Howard Dean, rather than present a positive alternative to Bush. Kerry won the nomination as the anti-Dean, and hoped to coast into the White House as the anti-Bush.

It was Kerry who decided to pick John Edwards as his running mate, on the theory that Americans would overlook Edwards’ ambulance-chasing career and because he speaks with a Southern accent. Kerry must have understood that choosing Edwards would split the Democratic Party into two camps: the Kerry camp, and the Clinton camp. By snubbing Hillary Clinton, Kerry made enemies of her and her husband. (Hillary knows that her only real shot at the White House is 2008, and Kerry is in the way.) When Bill Clinton offers advice, Kerry has no way of knowing if it’s a benevolent action.

So, even in his relationship with Bill Clinton, Kerry has to flip-flop. In early summer, Clinton publicly advised him to talk about domestic issues, and stop talking about Vietnam. The latter certainly turned out to be good advice, given the pounding Kerry has taken over his service record. But how was Kerry to know whether Clinton was being sincere? As to domestic issues, Newsweek is reporting this week that Kerry is planning to keep the focus on Iraq from now until the election. This decision was taken in spite of the widely-reported long telephone conversations that Kerry has had with the former president while Clinton recuperated from heart surgery.

In sports, when a team is behind, and time is running out, the coach is forced into a more risky strategy. To catch up, Kerry is going to have to attack Bush, and do so with something a lot more convincing than a handful of forged memos. Kerry’s tactical problem is that the forged memos will make Americans skeptical of whatever Kerry comes up with. The strategic trouble with attacking is that you are still not telling the American people what you are for and what you are about. That Kerry has failed to do so thus far is part of his problem. He assumed that Bush-hatred would carry him to victory.

And Bush hatred remains the central variable in this race. In spite of their possible disappointment with Kerry, there are those who would rather eat tinfoil than believe anything nice about George Bush (father or son). People like this will vote for Kerry because he is the only viable alternative to Bush. Kerry cannot lose their votes. To win, he has to produce more of them, which means Kerry has to produce more hate, more fear and more anger. All three produce only short-lived, split-second bursts of energy. To win, and he still might win, Kerry will have to time the burst precisely for Nov. 2.

And only Bill Clinton is smart enough to do that, without outsmarting himself.