Democratic presidential challenger John F. Kerry begins the fall campaign on the defensive and faces the urgent necessity to make the race about the economy and other domestic concerns, after President Bush used his convention to say this election is all about keeping the country safe.
Bush rode out of New York after a four-day convention tightly focused on terrorism -- and what Republicans say is the striking contrast between the credentials of the two candidates for commander in chief. Democratic strategists now say it is essential for Kerry to seize back the initiative that was lost during August.
"The most important thing is for Kerry to reengage the economic debate and . . . to be crystal-clear in framing the choice for voters," said Geoffrey Garin, a pollster whose clients include the Democratic National Committee. "The Republicans were very disciplined in how they wanted to frame the choice. . . . I think this is the moment where Kerry has to lay that out clearly."
Kerry strategist Tad Devine said the campaign is moving to shift the debate from terrorism to health care, jobs and other domestic issues under the theme that "a stronger America begins at home."
"They want to move the electorate toward Bush's perceived strength," he said. "We're trying to meet the voters where they are."
A senior Kerry adviser agreed. "They made a determination that they're going to run strictly on terrorism and commander in chief," he said of the Bush campaign. "We need the voters to make a different decision."
On the GOP convention's final day, Kerry strategists told reporters in New York that they were launching a television ad campaign to emphasize the economic issues they believe are uppermost for voters in battleground states. They plan to portray Kerry as the candidate who cares most about local concerns, whether it is nuclear waste storage in Nevada or job loss in Ohio.
The first post-convention indicators show that Kerry will be running from behind. A Newsweek magazine poll released yesterday showed Bush leading Kerry 52 percent to 41 percent, with independent Ralph Nader at 3 percent. A Time magazine poll released Friday showed a similar 11-point margin, although two other polls taken during the convention showed the race statistically tied.
The two sides are operating under different theories of how to win this election -- and not only whether terrorism or the economy will tip the balance in November.
"What we [the Kerry campaign] have to do is look at all these different places, these individual battlegrounds, state by state, and figure out how we're going to win each and every one of them," Devine said. ". . . I think they have a national campaign and a national message, which isn't going to differ a lot if you're in Florida or Ohio or Nevada."
Bush's side does not disagree. Matthew Dowd, his chief strategist, said that over the next two months, the vote in the battleground states will follow the national trends, rather than deviate significantly because of local factors. "I don't think there's anything going on in any individual state," Dowd said. "National and individual battlegrounds are adjusting the same."
Despite their differences on how to communicate with voters, the two campaigns agree on the importance of state-by-state, even county-by-county, voter turnout strategies. Here the GOP expressed concerns about the strength of the Democratic ground game, which has been augmented by independent organizations funded with large, unregulated "soft money" donations. Republicans are counting on predominantly volunteer organizations to register and turn out voters and believe that they have built on their successful model from the 2002 midterm election.
The two campaigns have been advertising in about 20 states, but the real battles are concentrated in far fewer, Kerry and Bush strategists say.
Democrats are competing in Colorado, North Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas, Arizona and Virginia, but Bush appears to have the upper hand in all of them. Republicans are doing the same in Oregon, Washington and Michigan, but face uphill battles.
