Get Clinton's rapid response team and get crackin', John. You're going to have to keep the pressure cranked up 125% for the next three months, because they're not going to give you an inch.
As Robert Robb of the Arizona Republic writes, Bush is VULNERABLE. But Kerry's not seizing the golden opportunities Bush is giving him.
Bush's moral clarity, resolve not enough
The prudence of the war in Iraq should be a fundamental issue in this campaign. But John Kerry is not in a good position to make it one. Kerry voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq, and says he would do so again knowing what he knows today.
So, despite overheated rhetoric about misleading the country and going to war only when necessary, Kerry isn't really challenging the premise of the war.
Instead, he says he could have mounted more international pressure to get Saddam to conform short of war, or prosecuted the war with more international participation. Given the relationship of the most important outliers - France, Germany and Russia - with Saddam's regime, that's a doubtful claim.
Regardless, Kerry is not making the argument that the war in Iraq was a mistake.
Nevertheless, the American people seem to be reaching that conclusion for themselves. Support for the Iraq war has been steadily declining, as has public approval of Bush's performance as president. [...]
There is reportedly a debate going on in the Bush campaign about whether to run on a substantive second-term domestic agenda of conservative reform, or rely on the paramountcy of national security concerns and Kerry's deficiencies.
In Phoenix, as elsewhere, Bush alluded to an "ownership society," basically a repackaging of previous positions on health care, home ownership and Social Security. At present, however, it's more of a sentiment than an agenda.
If Bush is to have a second term, he probably needs to tell the American people more about what he will do with it, other than showing resolve.
