Democrats Talk Up Kerry While Confronting Bush

Day One of the Democratic National Convention underscored Sen. John F. Kerry’s determination to challenge President Bush on national security while emphasizing a deeply personal contrast rooted in their divergent experiences during the Vietnam era.

From Presidents Carter and Clinton to 2000 nominee Al Gore and former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, a succession of speakers Monday night charged that Bush had failed to improve America’s security since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. That signaled the Democrats’ determination to confront the president on the national security record his campaign has assumed would be his strongest asset.

Even more strikingly, Clinton and Carter not only articulated the familiar Democratic argument that Kerry’s experience in Vietnam has prepared him to serve as commander in chief, but pointedly contrasted his service with Bush’s decision to serve in the National Guard at that time.

In an explicit and combative passage, Clinton declared: “During the Vietnam War, many young men -- including the current president, the vice president [Dick Cheney] and me -- could have gone to Vietnam and didn’t. John Kerry came from a privileged background and he could have avoided going too. Instead, he said: ‘Send me.’ ”

Clinton’s remarks, even more remarkable given the controversy he faced over his own efforts to avoid serving in Vietnam, demonstrated the extent to which Democrats are relying on Kerry’s combat experience to overcome the traditional party disadvantage on national security issues. It also gave the evening a more confrontational tone than Kerry aides promised when they said the convention would focus less on assailing Bush than burnishing the Massachusetts senator’s image.

Yet the Democratic efforts to tarnish Bush’s credibility may be complicated by their ambivalence on the national security issue that has generated the election’s most emotion: the war in Iraq.

Although a succession of Democrats -- including Carter and Gore -- strongly implied they believed the war in Iraq was a mistake, none of the leading speakers said so explicitly.

That fuzziness underscored a contradiction at the heart of the Democratic case this year. For all of the party’s emphasis on national security, Kerry has refused to say flatly whether he agrees with Bush’s most significant foreign policy choice: the decision to invade Iraq. As in their party platform -- which avoids taking a direct position on the invasion -- Democrats on Monday sought to move beyond that threshold question.

“Regardless of your opinion at the beginning of this war ... wouldn’t we be better off with a new president who hasn’t burned his bridges to our allies, and who could rebuild respect for America in the world?” Gore asked.

Some analysts agree this strategy could be effective by focusing on public disillusionment with the violence and continuing U.S. casualties in Iraq.

But if Kerry this week leaves swing voters convinced he is straddling on the war, he may widen his vulnerability to the Bush campaign’s relentless charge that he vacillates too much to be trusted.

“To the extent Bush is able to say this is not about Iraq, this is about his ability to make a tough decision ... there is a line of attack there,” said Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who specializes in public opinion on national security.

The emphasis on Kerry’s combat service -- which included a spirited testimonial to his heroism under fire from the Rev. David Alston, -- represents a different kind of gamble. Most Democrats think Kerry’s experience under fire will prove an enormous asset in establishing his national security credibility.

“It doesn’t win an argument about who is tougher on security but it buys him a hearing,” said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank.

Some analysts doubt the Vietnam credentials will prove as powerful as the Kerry campaign hopes. Several times, candidates without military experience have defeated opponents with it -- as Clinton did when he beat President George H.W. Bush and former Sen. Bob Dole, two World War II heroes, during the 1990s.

Speaker after speaker gave national security messages much more prominence than usual at a Democratic convention. The convention’s last hour -- the only one aired by the broadcast networks -- began with a tribute to the victims of Sept. 11 that concluded with a haunting violin solo of “Amazing Grace.”

Introducing her husband, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) called for increasing the size of the military. And the former president, while recounting statistics showing faster economic growth under his administration than Bush’s, focused much of his speech on challenging the president’s claim that he had made the country safer since the attacks.

“9/11 did change everything,” said Marshall. “There are people who are plotting to kill us, and that has to supercede more prosaic and usual political debates. Democrats are recognizing that reality and what is stunning about this election is they are going right at Bush’s presumed trump card.”

The Democratic case for Kerry on national security boiled down to the argument that he would be just as tough as Bush, but smarter, by enlisting more support from allies and deliberating more carefully before committing American forces to battle. Clinton, in a phrase that electrified the crowd, put the argument most succinctly when he said, “Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.”

Yet Bush will have a case in this argument as well. While polls show most Americans want the nation to work in concert with others, surveys also show that most Americans don’t want other countries to dictate our actions. What Kerry portrays as greater cooperation, Bush at his convention next month is almost certain to present as capitulation to the demands of other nations.

The Democratic case, said Feaver, “is an effective superficial line. But it allows the Republicans to say ... do you want a president who can’t say no to allies, can’t say no to the U.N. and who doesn’t make a decision until he’s gotten Paris’ permission slip?”

The evening saw a series of surprising role reversals. Seventy-nine-year-old Jimmy Carter, improbably transformed into a attack dog, expressed the Democratic base’s attitudes toward Bush more explicitly than any speaker. Without ever mentioning the president by name, Carter accused his administration of “extremism” in foreign affairs and misleading the world.

By contrast, Gore, who has emerged as one of the president’s most fevered critics, pursued his old rival with a light touch. “I sincerely ask those watching at home who supported President Bush four years ago: Did you really get what you expected from the candidate you voted for?” Gore asked.

Clinton, characteristically, pursued a third way between the two. He described both Kerry and Bush as “strong men who both love their country” -- but also delivered the most detailed indictment against Bush’s domestic and foreign record.

The night had something of a clearing-the-decks feel as the Kerry campaign kicked off the convention with speeches from a series of prominent Democrats past.

The biggest exception was the prime-time slot for Sen. Clinton, a testament to her rising stature in the party. Indeed, with many speculating that she will seek the next available Democratic presidential nomination, this night may ultimately be remembered as the last time she introduced Bill Clinton at a Democratic convention, rather than vice versa.