Kerry's in Trouble If First Impressions Really Count

Robin Toner, in the NYT (May 9, 2004):

In the summer of 1988, Republicans rolled out a carefully tested, meticulously planned campaign aimed at turning Michael S. Dukakis, the Democratic nominee, into an utterly unacceptable choice for president.

The message was simple: Mr. Dukakis was a liberal, "outside the mainstream," who let murderers out of prison on weekend furloughs, would not require schoolchildren to say the Pledge of Allegiance and was soft on defense.

Mr. Dukakis, who found it hard to believe that the charges would stick, resisted fighting back. His negatives soared. A generation of Democratic political operatives, many of them now working for Senator John Kerry, swore never again. A generation of Republican operatives, some of them now working to re-elect President Bush, took notes.

So how relevant is the Dukakis model for 2004? How hard is it for a challenger today to introduce himself to the American people, pass a threshold of credibility as a potential commander in chief and at the same time beat back relentless efforts by the opposition to define him first? As harrowing as Mr. Dukakis's experience was 16 years ago, the task facing modern challengers may be even rougher in the blindingly fast world of 24-hour cable and Internet warfare.

There are, at times, eerie echoes of 1988 on the campaign trail these days. For two months, many Democrats have watched, queasily, as the Republicans roll out another disciplined campaign against their nominee as a flip-flopping Massachusetts liberal who is soft on defense, with a huge wave of paid advertising backed up by legions of Republicans and surrogates, all firmly on message. The commercials rattle off some weapon systems Mr. Kerry opposed financing at one time or another, just as they did against Mr. Dukakis in 1988.

Moreover, Democrats have discovered - once again - that a candidate can win a party's nomination, make the covers of the national magazines and still be unknown to many voters, who are only intermittently paying attention right now. With a $25 million advertising campaign launched last week, the Kerry forces are scrambling to fill in the blanks, before the Bush campaign does, and to regain control of the candidate's story - "a lifetime of service and strength," as they put it.

But many Republicans share the view, or hope, of Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, who says of Mr. Kerry: "The country really doesn't know him, unlike Reagan, who'd been around awhile. And the country is being introduced to him more by the Bush campaign than by the Kerry campaign."