Fred Barnes: No Candidate in History Hs Ever Run on His War Record Like Kerry Is

Fred Barnes, in the Weekly Standard (Aug. 30, 2004):

THERE'S NEVER BEEN a presidential campaign like John Kerry's. Never has a presidential nominee made his own experience in a war the centerpiece of his campaign for the White House. In 1960, John F. Kennedy didn't hide his World War II record as commander of PT-109, but he didn't talk it up either. When asked about being a hero, he mocked the idea and said it stemmed from having his boat shot out from under him. John McCain's experience as a POW in Vietnam was well known when he ran for the Republican nomination in 2000. But he rarely mentioned it, except to note that his longest place of residence was Hanoi. Kerry is different. His speeches, TV ads, interviews, the entire Democratic convention--all have dwelled on his four months in Vietnam and the five medals he was awarded.

And there's still another unique aspect. Never has a presidential nominee run on the basis of his role in a war he opposed. Dwight Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, and the five ex-Union officers in the Civil War who became president benefited politically from their participation and leadership in a war. Most of them, in fact, were famous for their wartime service. Kerry, by contrast, became famous as a war protester, as the leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, who charged that war crimes were being committed by American troops in Vietnam on a daily basis. Now Kerry has stood the Vietnam issue on its head. He insists it's his war record that shows he would be a strong president.

Why is Kerry leaning so heavily on his performance in Vietnam? It's a bulwark against attacks on his weak record on defense and national security as a U.S. senator since 1985. In an era of terrorist attacks, his votes to cut intelligence spending, indeed his overall dovishness, are liabilities. So the theme of nearly every speaker at the Democratic convention in July was that Kerry's Vietnam service, not his Senate record, reflects the kind of president he would be. "I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as president," Kerry declared....

Has a candidate's having heard "the thump" of mortars or seen the "flash of tracers" ever before been used as grounds for election? Not in recent memory anyway. Harry Truman was an artillery officer in World War I, but his campaign didn't highlight that in his tough election battle in 1948. "You didn't get Kennedy saying, 'I have served and I have shrapnel in me,'" says Fred Greenstein, a presidential scholar and professor emeritus at Princeton. "Kennedy was too classy a guy to say that." (A Kerry campaign commercial says Kerry still has shrapnel in his leg.) George Bush senior, running for president in 1988 and 1992, didn't discuss his World War II service in the Pacific. Nor did Eisenhower rely on his war experience. "He didn't have to say 'I know about war,'" says Greenstein. "Everybody knew he knew about war."

Truman, Kennedy, Bush, and Eisenhower stressed other issues. Truman thrashed the "do-nothing Congress." Kennedy deplored a "missile gap" and exuded optimism about America. Bush ran as Ronald Reagan's heir but "kinder and gentler." Eisenhower promised to go to Korea and to clean up the mess in Washington. Kerry, however, "has made his four months of military service a key part, a mantra, a touchstone," says Greenstein. Since 1904, when presidential candidates began active campaigning, Kerry "is probably distinctive in the extent to which he makes reference to it."...