June 25, 2004
POLITICAL MEMO

Kerry's Campaign Theme Is Leaning Toward Center

By ROBIN TONER

ASHINGTON, June 24 - Senator John Kerry has yet to produce a popular catchphrase for his political philosophy, like Gov. Bill Clinton's 1992 promise of a "third way" or Gov. George W. Bush's pledge in 2000 of "compassionate conservatism."

But Mr. Kerry's Democratic message for the general election campaign is emerging, many Democrats say - on the campaign trail, in the party platform now being written and in the major speeches he has delivered in recent weeks.

His message, in part, is a return to the promise of Clintonian centrism: reducing the deficit, spurring economic growth, trying to ease "the squeeze on middle-class America," as Mr. Kerry puts it, from things like the cost of health insurance and college tuition.

Bruce Reed, president of the Democratic Leadership Council and a longtime Clinton aide, fretted openly during the heyday of Howard Dean last year that the party was moving to the left. Today, Mr. Reed describes Mr. Kerry approvingly as "a pragmatic centrist in the Clinton mode."

Familiar faces from the Clinton years, like the economic adviser Gene Sperling, are now at Mr. Kerry's side; James P. Rubin, a State Department spokesman in the Clinton years who advised Gen. Wesley K. Clark during the primaries, is now traveling with Mr. Kerry full time.

But Mr. Kerry's message also reflects a very different time from the 1990's, framed by three unsettling years of terrorism, war and political division. Mr. Kerry's favorite refrain these days is a plea to "let America be America again." It is a quotation from a Langston Hughes poem that he uses to evoke the idea of restoration - for the economy, for a tax code that he asserts is increasingly unjust, for the dreams of the middle class and, perhaps most of all, for the country's foreign policy.

Mr. Kerry's basic campaign speech has a distinctive edge, reflecting the Democratic Party's fury at President Bush and his handling of an increasingly unpopular war.

At a fund-raiser in San Francisco this week, Mr. Kerry described the Republicans' governing philosophy as "my way or the highway" and asserted: "George Bush talked about being a uniter, not a divider. But he's been the greatest divider as a president in the modern history of this country."
In a break with at least a generation of Democratic candidates, and certainly with Mr. Clinton, Mr. Kerry's primary emphasis these days is often foreign policy and national security. "This will be more like a cold war election than the elections of the 1990's," said Elaine Kamarck, a leading strategist for the Clinton-era "new Democrats," now a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

The son of a foreign service officer and the veteran of both the Vietnam War and 20 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Kerry is comfortable on this terrain, campaigning on the promise of a safer, more secure United States that is respected by its allies.

Just as he invokes Mr. Clinton on the economy, Mr. Kerry summons the legacy of John F. Kennedy, Harry S. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt when it comes to the United States' role in the world - a kind of muscular internationalism. He pledges an end to a "go it alone" foreign policy. He is regularly cheered when he talks about a return to the days of alliance building, arguing that alliances make the United States stronger, not weaker.

And he invariably brings Democratic loyalists to their feet when he declares: "The United States of America should never go to war because it wants to. We should only go to war because we have to."
His advisers say that by virtue of his background Mr. Kerry is uniquely suited to re-establish the Democratic Party's credibility on national security, an essential threshold for any challenger after Sept. 11, 2001. The Republicans have long had an institutional edge on such issues.

Mr. Kerry draws heavily on his experiences in Vietnam when he talks about the role of commander in chief, implicitly making the contrast with Mr. Bush, who served stateside during that war.

"I believe we need a president who knows the responsibilities of the commander in chief in the gut, and in the heart, and who keeps his word to the American people," Mr. Kerry said in Ohio recently. When it comes to deploying troops, he said, a president needs to "be able to look into the eyes of parents, face to face, and tell them, 'I did everything in my power to avoid the loss of your son and daughter, but the threat to our country was so great that we had no choice.' "

Mr. Kerry also regularly offers a pledge that is strikingly similar to one by Mr. Bush in 2000, when he promised to restore "the honor and dignity of the White House" after the turmoil of the Clinton impeachment. Mr. Kerry declares: "If it ever comes to the issue of war and peace, I will tell the truth to the American people. I will restore trust and credibility to the White House."

Unlike Mr. Clinton, a Southern Democrat who thought long and hard about how to reposition the national party, Mr. Kerry spends little time - at least publicly - on the pros and cons of liberal orthodoxy and the party's image. Many Democrats say he has no need to. "Kerry is building on what Clinton did," said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts.

Asked last month where he hoped to lead the party, Mr. Kerry said, "We are going to keep faith with the history of our party and the principles." Among those principles, he said, were "understanding the problems and addressing the problems of the middle class that builds America and always has."
But Mr. Kerry said that in defending these principles, "we need to keep our minds open" to new solutions and new approaches. "A great example is what we did for welfare reform in the 1990's," he said, alluding to the landmark legislation passed by a Republican Congress and signed by Mr. Clinton. "I voted for it. I embraced it." He added: "I don't want to be pigeonholed. I don't want our party to be pigeonholed."

One of Mr. Kerry's new ideas is his health care proposal. Unlike the ill-fated Clinton plan, the Kerry proposal would not try to reinvent the health care system, but would have thegovernment pick up the cost of the most expensive, catastrophic cases, which he argues would lower the cost of premiums with minimal government involvement.

Like any nominee moving toward a general election, Mr. Kerry is increasingly reaching out to voters in the middle.

He also increasingly talks about values. Attacking Mr. Bush's budget, Mr. Kerry said last week: "Scripture tells you where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Let me tell you where my heart is. My heart is with the working families, who built this country."

But even as he moves his appeal to the center, Mr. Kerry must stay aware of Ralph Nader on his left. And Republicans have fought and will continue to fight the idea that he will be strong on national security and centrist on taxing and spending.

The platform, Democrats say, will try to be positive and highlight Mr. Kerry's core themes of strength at home and abroad while still presenting the case against Mr. Bush.

In what may be the sternest test of Mr. Kerry's current message, he brought it before his colleagues in the Senate Democratic caucus this week. "He gave a short presentation, and he got a long, sustained standing ovation," said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. Of course, another senator noted, it was also the day a Washington Post/ABC News poll was published showing Mr. Kerry with a decided edge in the race for the presidency.

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