- WASHINGTON (AFP) - As John
Kerry struggles to overtake George W. Bush in their White House race he
faces a deepening dilemma: how to press his attacks on the president without
turning off voters weary of negative campaigning.
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- Five weeks before the election, polls showed the Massachussetts
senator taking most of the blame for the campaign's bitter tone and suggested
voters would prefer he spend more time detailing his plans for a Kerry
presidency.
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- At the same time, Republican suggestions that Kerry is
unpatriotic, defeatist and the favored candidate of terrorists have drawn
heavy criticism in the press but little backlash in the polls.
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- The race, unfolding in the superheated atmosphere of
post-September 11 anxiety and the war in Iraq, has been from the start
one of the most acrimonious and personal presidential contests in recent
history.
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- Bush has depicted his Democratic challenger as waffling
on defense issues and unfit for command, while Kerry has portrayed the
Republican as an arrogant blunderer blithely ignoring the mess he has made
of the war on terror.
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- But a CBS News survey released Thursday showed that 27
percent of registered voters considered Kerry the sole source of unfair
attacks, while 19 percent pointed the finger squarely at Bush.
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- In a New York Times/CBS News poll published a week earlier,
52 percent of voters thought Kerry spent too much time hashing over the
past and not enough talking about the future. The same percentage felt
Bush had struck the right balance.
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- Nearly six in 10 believed that Kerry had not made it
clear what he hoped to accomplish as president if he wins the November
2 election.
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- The findings have been frustrating and worrying for the
Kerry camp, which has pinned its hopes of victory on an all-out offensive
against Bush's Iraq policies and performance in combating terrorism.
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- Spokeswoman Allison Dobson bristled when asked by AFP
about the latest CBS News poll on Kerry's campaign tactics.
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- "John Kerry has a very positive message about making
Americans safer at home while respected in the world," she said. "George
W. Bush has run the most negative campaign in history, period."
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- Indeed, it is Kerry who seems to have suffered most from
the exchanges, particularly doubts raised by pro-Bush war veterans on his
Vietnam combat record and nonstop assaults on his leadership at the Republican
national convention.
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- The Republicans have escalated their attacks in recent
weeks, with Vice President Dick Cheney saying a Kerry victory would make
another terrorist strike more likely and Bush insisting criticisms on Iraq
could "embolden" the insurgents.
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- Bush, on the other hand, got off relatively easy in the
Democratic national convention that was focused mostly on building up Kerry's
credentials as a capable commander in chief.
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- Allegations the president ducked Vietnam and used his
family's political ties to get a cushy position in the Texas Air National
Guard were blunted by a controversy over dubious documents used by CBS
News to bolster the claim.
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- If the Republicans tagged Kerry a flip-flopper for voting
to authorize military action in Iraq and then opposing the war, Bush's
reversals on issues from steel tariffs to a national inquiry on the September
11 attacks have left no mark.
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- Calibrating how far to go in attacking the president
will be critical for Kerry in the three televised debates kicking off Thursday.
Aides said they hope to corner Bush on his record, but the Democrat also
needs to project a positive image.
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- But on a broader level, some analysts doubted whether
Kerry could win the election with attacks on the Iraq war alone. Some feel
he would do better to concentrate on the economy and other domestic issues
where Bush is vulnerable.
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- Eric Davis, a political science professor at Middlebury
College in Vermont and an expert on presidential campaigns, said the Democrats
appeared to be losing steam in their drive to unseat Bush.
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- "Part of it is that the Kerry campaign still hasn't,
it seems, figured out what's the consistent message and then sustain that
message over a period of several weeks," Davis said.
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- Copyright © 2004 Agence France Presse. All rights
reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority
of Agence France Presse.
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