- When John Kerry started to gallop to victory during the
primaries, national reporters tracked down contemporaries from his prep
school in New England. Who were his best friends at St Paul's School for
boys?
-
- The response was notable: nobody could quite recall.
The candidate was better remembered as "Keep-the-puck Kerry",
because he would seldom pass to ice hockey team-mates before
scoring.
-
- Other times he would crash a kids' informal game, steal
the puck and shoot it into the woods. In later years, some of Kerry's
political
colleagues from Massachusetts would dub him "Live Shot" not
because
of his war record, but because he often hogged the limelight.
-
- Kerry was perhaps equally telling shortly after he
finally
announced his running mate several months ago: the charismatic and younger
John Edwards. A few days later the two men were interviewed on the
television
news magazine, 60 Minutes. Whenever Edwards started to respond to a
question,
Kerry would interrupt and answer instead.
-
- The tales are all part of a continuing theme, as are
sniggers about President Bush's mangled syntax. Is John Kerry too solitary
and awkward to win in America's populist down-home presidential
politics?
-
- Questions about Kerry's patrician manner, cautiousness,
and whether he can set up a deft and responsive campaign are
resurfacing.
-
- "The question is not whether George Bush showed
up for National Guard duty 30 years ago, but whether John Kerry will show
up for the rest of the campaign," blasted columnist Steve Lopez of
the Los Angeles Times on Friday.
-
- It was a bitter echo of the growing dismay among Kerry
supporters as the race becomes more volatile, with some polls showing Bush
breaking ahead. Kerry clearly faces a difficult final stretch, until the
vote on November 2.
-
- Three of the five most recent polls have Bush and Kerry
statistically tied, despite Bush's record taking a beating over the past
few weeks.
-
- "Bush clear leader in poll" was the front-page
headline in Friday's USA Today, which cited new Gallup data showing Bush
13 points ahead.
-
- According to a New York Times/ CBS News poll, in which
Bush is eight points ahead, voters say that Kerry has failed to offer a
clear vision of his own, and has spent too much time focusing on his own
past and attacking Bush.
-
- Confidence within Kerry's own party has also tumbled.
A recent Pew Research Centre poll found that the proportion of Democrats
who expect him to win has plummeted from 66% in August to 43%.
-
- The number of undecided voters has grown from 21% in
June-July to 25%, according to the Pew Centre. The same poll asked swing
voters which candidate is more "real". Bush won, 56% to 38%.
And according to a recent Zogby/Williams poll, 57% of undecided voters
would rather have a beer with Bush than Kerry.
-
- Over the past few weeks, Bush's surrogates have played
what some analysts say are the dirtiest politics since the times of Richard
Nixon. Dick Cheney, the vice-president, for example said that a terrorist
attack is more likely if Kerry is elected.
-
- The responses from Kerry's campaign are often as cautious
or wooden as the candidate himself. Bill Clinton, even as he was being
prepared for open-heart surgery in hospital, reportedly told Kerry in a
conference call that he had been far too slow to respond to attacks on
his Vietnam record.
-
- But Kerry is taking the gloves off. He has also
reshuffled
his campaign staff. However, with only six weeks until the vote, some fear
it is too late to change his public image.
-
- On Friday, he hammered away at Cheney as a former honcho
at Halliburton, who has received £1.1 million in pension payments
since 2000. The defence contractor is accused of over-billing the US
taxpayer
for contract work in Iraq.
-
- In contrast, Bush seems more confident than ever, making
jokes about Cheney's baldness and appearing at rallies, shirt-sleeves
rolled
up, smiling and pumped up.
-
- Bush flies to Florida and Alabama today to view hurricane
damage; Kerry is trying to lighten up by appearing tomorrow night on Late
Night With David Letterman.
-
- The race is almost backwards: the issue is Kerry, rather
than Bush and Iraq or the economy. Usually, if a president seeks
re-election,
the vote is a referendum on him and his record, says Brookings Institute
scholar Stephen Hess.
-
- A growing fear among disgruntled Democrats is that Kerry
will fumble the all-important televised debates with Bush, tentatively
proposed by a bipartisan commission for September 30 and on two dates in
October.
-
- Kerry's campaign quickly agreed to the full three
debates.
But as of yesterday, the Bush-Cheney campaign had refused to pin itself
down, a strategy to keep Kerry off-balance and to maximise the perception
that Bush is afraid.
-
- The President's lawyers are expected to agree to two,
but not the second debate in mid-October in St Louis because it would
include
questions from the public.
-
- Bush's team successfully pushed the same idea in 2000,
that he was a poor debater. The perception harmed Al Gore. Because Bush
did not stumble, he won.
-
- The same could happen all over again, says politics
scholar
Jack Pitney, a former researcher at the Republican National Committee.
Kerry is a skilled debater, but may drown his answers in prevarication.
"The Bush people are already praising Kerry's [debating] skills, and
trying to lower the bar," he says.
-
- A few days ago, Kerry was interviewed live by popular
morning radio host Don Imus. The host tried to pin down Kerry on his
promise
to get American troops out of Iraq. "Well, the plan gets more
complicated
every single day because the President..." Kerry started.
-
- "Try to simplify it for me," interjected
Imus.
-
- Kerry continued: "Because about - I can't remember
whether it's - several months ago, I said, 'This may be the President's
last chance to get it right in Iraq.' That's what I said..."
-
- Pressed again , Kerry said: "What you ought to be
doing - and what everybody in America ought to be doing - today is not
asking me. They ought to be asking the President, 'What is your
plan?'"
-
- Imus retorted: "We're asking you, because you want
to be president." The final answer from Kerry: "I can't tell
you what I'm going to find on the ground on January 20." That is the
date of the presidential inauguration.
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