Kerry needs to stand for something besides ABB. So far he has failed utterly.
HE LATEST round of polls, coming on the crest of a wave of extraordinarily bad news for President Bush, ought to make one point abundantly clear to Sen. John Kerry.
He is not going to win by merely tapping public disgust with the policies and missteps of the Bush administration. There may be a legion of Americans who are motivated beyond words to toss Bush out of the White House, but it does not -- at this juncture anyway -- appear large enough to produce the required 270 electoral votes.
Kerry is going to have to win over a large contingent of swing voters, many of whom are giving Bush the benefit of the doubt even as the Iraq war festers, the 9/11 hearings reveal an administration asleep at the switch and the economy sputters in many places, including here. Kerry is going to have to show those voters that he can do a better job of fighting terrorism, navigating the U.S. out of Iraq and restoring prosperity.
He is going to have to do it by leading, not hedging.
And he is not doing it now.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/04/26/EDGGG5VKNO1.DTL