Fineman: The 'Sock Puppet' Strategy (Kerry vs. *) [View All]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5092803/site/newsweek/

In Seattle they want their coffee strong and their salmon straight from the river, a yen for flavor that may explain why the air was buzzless in McCaw Hall when Sen. John Kerry unveiled his plan for bolstering American "security and strength for a new world." But wowing locals wasn't the goal; outmaneuvering George W. Bush was. Despite rising sentiment in the Democratic Party against the war in Iraq (given voice last week by Al Gore's roar), "Kerry is not going hard left on the war," declared a top adviser. Not if he wants to win swing votes in Red States.

So in a painstakingly balanced speech—crafted by a coalition of Democratic centrists—Kerry took dead aim at the mainstream, calculating that voters may want to change leaders more than philosophy. The president, Kerry declared, was an inept, simplistic, go-it-alone cowboy incapable of carrying on America's tradition of global alliance-building. Even so, Kerry agreed that creating a new Iraq was necessary for American security, and he proclaimed himself just as tough—and as willing to use military force, even pre-emptively—as the man he wants to replace.

In McCaw Hall, there was some evidence that Kerry's modulated sales effort might succeed. Iraq is "an absolute mess," said David Haldeman, 25. "Kerry did not address Iraq as clearly as I would have liked. But my dislike of George Bush overrides everything at this point. You can put a sock puppet next to Bush and I would vote for it."

At Kerry headquarters in Washington, no one's calling it the "sock puppet" theory, but it's pretty much the one they are operating on. The election, in their view, doesn't turn on Kerry's legislative victories (in 20 years in the Senate, they are few) or on his grand new ideas (his foreign policy, judging from his advisers, would be a Clinton Restoration). Rather, his handlers think, the race is about being a minimally acceptable alternative and in the right position to capitalize on the president's weakness.