Kerry Picked Wrong Fight, And Paid

Historically, when polls show that voters feel the country is headed in the wrong direction and that they are worried about the president's handling of the economy, that president, whoever he is, is going to have a tough time getting re-elected.

Add on voter worry about this president's handling of the war in Iraq and you would think that that would make it very hard for him to win re-election.

Yet, the new /New York Times poll suggests all of the above, but it also reports something else -- that George Bush has now opened a 9-point lead over John Kerry.

You don't have to be an expert to figure this out. Voters may be less than enamored with President Bush but they are even more uneasy about John Kerry whose plans for the country remain a mystery, according to this poll.

For that, Kerry and his people must take most of the blame.

I can remember how they told me at the Boston convention that if they could beat George Bush on the national security issue, they could beat him. That may have been true in theory, but they chose the wrong example, it seems to me, to argue their case.

Instead of Iraq, they focused on Vietnam, a war that came out badly nearly three decades ago, before many voters were even born.

Now they have discovered the sad and dirty secret about Vietnam: It is the one war that many Americans want to forget, not remember. Vietnam brought down many a man. It threatens now to bring down another.

By Bob Schieffer