Bush Camp to Pore Over Kerry Votes

The manager of President Bush’s reelection campaign said Monday that in an expected matchup with John F. Kerry, the Republican team would focus much of its criticism on the votes the Massachusetts senator cast to cut defense and intelligence spending and to oppose 1991’s Persian Gulf War.

The comments by Ken Mehlman, posted on the Bush campaign’s website, signaled that the president and his aides hoped to undercut Kerry’s credentials on national security issues.

While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Kerry frequently has cited his Vietnam War record and belittled Bush’s use of military themes and imagery. If Republicans want to talk about national security, Kerry tells crowds, he has a ready reply: “Bring it on!”

It appears that the Republicans will do just that -- albeit carefully.

“We honor Sen. Kerry’s patriotic service during the Vietnam War,” Mehlman said in an “online chat” with Bush supporters. “Yet we question the judgments of his votes to consistently cut defense and intelligence funding, his vote against the first Gulf War, and his recently stated belief that the war on terror is primarily about law enforcement and intelligence.”

David Wade, a Kerry spokesman, responded: “The GOP is resorting to their usual politics of attack and distortion. It’s smart strategy. Otherwise they’d have to do something really desperate, and talk about their record.”

But Bush advisors say that it is Kerry, by virtue of his thousands of votes during his 19-year career in the Senate, who has a vulnerable record. They plan to depict him as a “typical” Massachusetts liberal who is soft on defense and who has been tied to special interests.

“John Kerry is who he is, and he won’t be able to run from that,” said one Bush campaign advisor.

Mehlman also warned Kerry and other Democrats to steer clear of the questions some have raised about Bush’s tenure in the National Guard during the Vietnam War. Bush flew a fighter jet when he was in the Guard from 1968 to 1973, but his units were not called into combat.

Critics have questioned whether Bush complied with his National Guard requirements when he was posted in Alabama in 1972. The president, in an interview aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said he had met his Guard obligations while in Alabama and noted he had received an honorable discharge.

Kerry, who received several medals for his naval service in Vietnam, has said he made no judgments about those who enlisted in the National Guard -- which at the time was seen as a way to avoid the war -- left the United States to skip the draft or took other steps to keep themselves out of combat.

Republicans have pounced on that remark as an insult to those who serve in the Guard.

“Unfortunately, instead of debating [defense] issues, some on the other side have attacked the president personally, comparing his service in the National Guard to those Americans who dodged the draft,” Mehlman said. “This is wrong. We need to debate issues without personal attacks.”

In the last three weeks, Kerry has emerged as the front-runner in the Democrats’ nominating race, winning 10 out of 12 contests.

With the Democratic race apparently nearing an end, Bush campaign officials have declined to say when they will start television advertisements and whether such ads will praise the president, attack his anticipated Democratic foe or both. But it is widely expected that the GOP ads will begin soon, perhaps within the next week.

The Bush reelection campaign had nearly $100 million in the bank at the end of 2003.

One possible limitation on the president’s TV campaign is a new law that requires candidates to personally vouch for the content of their ads on air. Advisors acknowledged that they were carefully weighing whether and how to put Bush’s voice and image into an ad that would attack a Democrat.

“It’s a challenge for us,” said one advisor, “and we’ll meet the standard of the law. It’s a little bit difficult because it’s the president of the United States.”

One ad analyst said an attack directly by Bush against Kerry could be risky. “That brings you down to the other candidate’s level,” said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of the Virginia-based TNSMI/Campaign Media Analysis Group.