Kerry aims to win over electorate

BOSTON – First, Democrats learned to hate President Bush. Now, they have to teach the rest of the country to love John Kerry.

Gathering for their four-day national convention, which starts Monday, Democrats need to shift their message for the campaign’s final hundred days from the bumper sticker slogan of “Anyone But Bush” to one that will persuade non-Democrats to embrace and trust Kerry as a worthy alternative to an incumbent president.

To do that, they must get voters to forget about past Democratic candidates such as George McGovern and Michael Dukakis, who were widely judged as weak on defense, and to trust today’s Democrats to be tough-minded guardians of the nation’s security and, like former President Clinton, to be stewards of a vibrant economy. They need Americans to warm to the cool, patrician Kerry. And they probably should avoid “Fahrenheit 9/11”-style Bush bashing, which surely would rouse delegates in the hall but might scare swing-voting suburbanites watching on television.

They have to do it when live network TV coverage will be highly limited – ABC, CBS and NBC each will broadcast only three prime-time hours for the entire week. That could hamper Kerry’s ability to reach the relatively small pool of still-undecided voters and reduce the usual “bounce” in approval that most candidates get coming out of their party conventions.

Despite all those challenges, Democrats enter their convention in the best shape of any party taking on an incumbent president since Republican Ronald Reagan faced Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Since 1952, challengers have trailed incumbent presidents by an average of 17 percentage points in the weeks just before their conventions. At the same point, Kerry is tied with Bush – and about to seize the national stage.

“We’re doing better than any other challenger at this point in history,” said Jeanne Shaheen, the chairwoman of Kerry’s campaign and a former governor of New Hampshire.

Perhaps, but Kerry still must use the convention to introduce himself to the country, frame his message and build momentum toward November.

Despite almost two decades in the U.S. Senate, Kerry remains unfamiliar to 1 out of 3 likely voters. Even many who’ve decided they don’t like Bush haven’t yet decided if they do like Kerry.

“The objective of this convention will be to covey to the American people … that Sen. Kerry is going to be ready for the presidency,” New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said in Boston on Saturday. “The American people need to feel comfortable with Sen. Kerry. This is why this convention is crucial,” added Richardson, chairman of the four-day event.”

Using the convention as a stage for a weeklong commercial, Democrats from former President Clinton to Kerry’s fellow Vietnam War veterans will testify to his heroism and his strength. Kerry will be the first combat veteran nominated by Democrats since McGovern in 1972 and the first to boast of his combat record since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

McGovern was a World War II veteran, but he ran for president as an opponent of the Vietnam War and helped set the Democrats’ antiwar image, which Kerry wants to reverse. The party’s intended message this year couldn’t be more clear: The official description of the convention’s nightly themes uses the words “strong” or “strengthen” 18 times in seven paragraphs.

Kerry will seek to assure the country that he has the experience and judgment to replace Bush. Reagan faced a similar test in 1980, when many voters were ready to dump Carter but waited until they were comfortable that Reagan wasn’t the dangerous radical Democrats portrayed. “He’s got to appear presidential,” independent political analyst Stuart Rothenberg said. “He’s got to appear knowledgeable, mature and measured.”

Does a national party convention matter anymore? The traditional business of a convention – selecting a presidential nominee and writing the party’s platform – is now done long beforehand. Party members now pick their nominee in primary elections. No major-party convention has seen a fight for the nomination since Reagan challenged Gerald Ford in 1976, and none has required a second ballot since 1952.

But conventions still matter. They give each party’s activists their only moment to rally together every four years. They provide a stage for the party to define its vision for the country. They give Americans a unique opportunity to size up each team that’s trying to lead them into the future.

Even so, TV networks have scaled coverage way back, although cable news networks will provide more. That could produce a two-tier convention message aimed at two audiences: Moderate language during prime time for undecided voters and more partisan rhetoric during off-hours aimed at hard-core Democrats more likely to tune in to cable coverage.

Nevertheless, Kerry could get less of a boost out of this convention than most challengers over the past 30 years, who gained 6 percentage points in polls from their conventions on average.

One reason is that the audience probably will be smaller, thanks to the limited TV coverage and the lack of drama. Despite rising interest in this year’s election, just 36 percent of Americans said last week that they were interested in the Democratic convention, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. That’s down from 53 percent in 1992.

Also, as many as 95 percent of likely voters already have made up their minds, according to several polls.

Richardson on Saturday predicted that Kerry will gain 5 percentage points during the convention. But Kerry pollster Mark Mellman worked earlier to lower expectations to the point of predicting no gain at all after the nearly $100 million show. “There aren’t a lot of votes to move,” Kerry pollster Mark Mellman said. “There just isn’t much bounce left to get out of the convention.”

If Democrats were working to lower expectations, Republicans strived to raise them. “I’m not sure, given how closely divided the country is today, that they can … match the 30-year average. But they will get a bounce,” Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie said. “They’ll have a good week.”