WERE HE A PATRIOT, RATHER THAN A PARTISAN:

Go Negative on the Allies (PETER D. FEAVER, 6/15/04, NY Times)

[T]here are a couple of good reasons that the senator's foreign policy pronouncements are long on critique of Mr. Bush and short on everything else.

For starters, Mr. Kerry must bridge a very fractious constituency. Polling I did as part of a research project with my Duke University colleagues confirms that unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Kerry is "off message" with his base on Iraq. Ask Kerry supporters their Iraq views and they respond with positions sometimes diametrically opposed to those of their candidate; by contrast, Bush supporters largely echo the president. Apparently, the only thing that unites Kerry supporters, leaners, and undecideds is hostility to perceived mistakes by President Bush. So the candidate is left with a strategy that largely consists of criticism of his opponent, sometimes fair, sometimes unfair, but always biting.

Beyond the polling problem, Mr. Kerry has a style problem. The assessment of his political record has always been that he is more of a critic than a problem solver. His most important senatorial contributions in foreign policy have been investigations that have criticized conventional wisdom. While these have at times been vital examinations, he still cannot point to any Nunn-Lugar-Kerry or Goldwater-Nichols-Kerry legislation that comes up with a solution instead of just identifying a foreign policy problem.

Mr. Kerry and his team may also be wary of meddling in actual foreign policy, of acting as if he were already in the White House. He's wise to avoid such freelancing, although he skirted dangerously close in the late May speech in which he threw down the gauntlet, challenging Mr. Bush to get more international support for Iraq. By saying, in effect, that if Mr. Bush fails here, then he should not be re-elected, Mr. Kerry opened himself up to the charge that he was making a not very thinly veiled appeal to the allies to continue shirking.

Mr. Kerry could have inoculated himself against this criticism if he had even hinted at his displeasure that the European allies had not stepped up. He can still do so, with a few well-chosen paragraphs repeated over time, taking a stance that would also help his campaign. And since his campaign has already assured us that those leaders respect Mr. Kerry more than they do Mr. Bush, his admonition just might help — or at least clarify that the problem with getting aid from the allies runs deeper than "inadequate Bush diplomacy."

Okay, we all get the reasons to vote against President Bush; is anyone aware of a single reason to vote for Mr. Kerry?

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 16, 2004 9:14 PM