Kerry Strategy: Lay Low On Iraq

By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer

He is traveling a wholly separate course strategically. He is campaigning locally, winning the regional press coverage and continuing his ad blitz in the battleground states.

But some Democrats want more. They see Kerry as dangerously similar to the incumbent president on Iraq policy. They worry Americans could still decide not to change horses in midstream, as President Abraham Lincoln urged at the height of the Civil War.

"I think for anyone to argue that the issue of Iraq was a missed opportunity for Kerry, then you know, the inverse of that is that somehow this is a good thing for Bush. I don't think it is plausible on its face," says Tad Devine, the Kerry campaign chief strategist.

The Kerry camp would like their candidate to differ from Mr. Bush in broad-brush Iraq policy. The problem is Mr. Bush has come closer to Kerry's side, signaling a willingness to cede some tangible power to the United Nations. A new U.S. resolution on Iraq is currently being negotiated in the U.N. Security Council.

Since April, when the instability in Iraq became increasingly clear stateside, Kerry has struggled with how to present himself as a viable alternative to Mr. Bush without appearing to be capitalizing on the deaths of American soldiers.

As more Americans question the war, the backroom chatter among Democratic strategists is about whether Kerry must do more to differentiate himself from the president on Iraq.

"Iraq is a very delicate issue," Devine says. "People are dying in Iraq right now – Americans. Taxpayers are going to spend about $200 billion to pay for it over the course of the last year and a half. You know, that's a lot of bad news.

"When you deal with bad news like that, you have to be really careful about the way you handle it. You have to be constructive," Devine adds. "If Kerry were to speak out in a way that would be perceived as political, I think it would hurt him."

Kerry is choosing a path on the Iraqi war that he can march if he's elected president. Arguably less opportunistic than a clear antiwar message, Kerry's current stance on Iraq is virtually indistinguishable from Mr. Bush's.

Kerry is left with the base argument that only a new president can have credibility with the international community. His position differs only in nuance. For example, Kerry wants NATO to take a leading role in Iraq.

Both men say they will keep troops in Iraq as long as it takes to assure stability. Both say they will increase the U.S. military presence if necessary.

Neither man will hazard a guess as to when U.S. troops will come home. Neither wants to publicly question the generals on the ground in Iraq.

This week, Mr. Bush made the first of a string of speeches previewing the partial handover of sovereignty to Iraqis, scheduled for June 30. Kerry is also beginning a series of events focused on national security.

Complicating matters for Kerry, third-party threat Ralph Nader has cast himself as an antiwar candidate. Nader would withdraw troops, although he has not yet gained momentum on his antiwar message.

Nevertheless, the Kerry campaign is paying attention.

"Listen, we are doing what we need to do in this campaign, which is to communicate information about John Kerry to swing voters in target states," Devine says, adding that making the top of the evening news "is not that important for us."

"I think it is going to be important in October. It could be important in September," Devine says. "I think most of the time when you lead the national news now it is going to be for negative reasons."

But even if Kerry wanted to make the front pages of the national newspaper, it is unclear if he could. The president has the bully pulpit, for better or worse.

"The truth of it is that they don't have any choice," says Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist who advised Rep. Dick Gephardt before he dropped out of this year's presidential contest. "The reason Bush is dominating the news is because things are going so bad in Iraq and there is nothing Kerry can say or add."

Carrick says that Kerry is "going to try" to differentiate himself but "it is just very hard to figure out whether or not you are going to break through."

"Part of this is that the calendar is so long here and we have so little experience with this," Carrick continued. "The Kerry campaign recognizes that when they come to town, the local campaign coverage is like covering the PGA tour; when the tournament is in town you get a lot of media coverage... That is really being exploited very effectively by the Kerry people."

The last time a Democrat challenged a Republican incumbent was in 1992, when Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush. Eli Segal ran the Clinton campaign. There was a war in Iraq then, too – which America clearly won. The elder Mr. Bush lost that election on the bad economy. This time around, the paradigm could be turned on its head.

Segal says that he is "sure" the Kerry campaign is "not ecstatic that the stories are today whether [Kerry] will or won't take money, and whether there is or isn't going to be a decent convention here in Boston."

But Segal, who also headed Gen. Wesley Clark's failed presidential bid this year, says he has "no problem where the Kerry campaign is today."

"At this point in 1992 we were in a distant third place, we were $3 million in debt. The Kerry campaign is in quite good shape," he says.

So Kerry continues campaigning locally – Philadelphia, Portland, Topeka. And Devine shows no indication there will be any dramatic shift in tactics. The Kerry camp will let Mr. Bush win or lose, on Iraq, while it continues its separate strategic track.

"I never expected at this juncture in the race, against an incumbent president, that we would have had a horse race," he says. "The way it is supposed to unfold is right now the voters are deciding whether or not they want to reelect the president. I think the verdict on that is becoming increasingly clear: they are definitely looking for an alternative. Question number two is, is the alternative acceptable?

"Now I think there are two essential thresholds of acceptability," Devine adds. "One, does the person have capacity to be president of the United States. That is probably the single most important threshold. I think we have already surpassed it."

But Devine says it is the second part that provides the obstacle for the Kerry campaign: "Whether or not voters feel comfortable with him and believe that his agenda is their agenda. And that is the side of the campaign that is a combination of the biographical – which we are supplying a lot of, especially in battleground states with extensive biographic advertising – and information about his agenda, which will be forthcoming."