The Note

W A S H I N G T O N, May 27, 2004&#151;<br> -- NOTED NOW

TODAY SCHEDULE (all times ET)

FUTURES CALENDAR

NEWS SUMMARY

Noted Now: Q1 GDP grows 4.4 percent. Stronger than expected. Noted Now

Noted Soon: The DNC's $50 million CoH!

Noted A Little Later: Will any of Kerry's foreign policy advisers go off the reservation?

Noted Yet Later: What Don King says to Ed Gillespie, and vice-versa.

Noted Yesterday:

With his brio-filled speech and acrid punch lines (George W. Bush is running a "gulag" of sorts at Abu Ghraib), former vice president Al Gore has successfully placed at the feet of Sen. John Kerry a marker for the Democratic nominee's evolving strategy to communicate about foreign policy.

Kerry today delivers what aides are billing as the first in a series of major addresses to fill the gaps between disparate strands of policy. For the next 11 days, Kerry will try to fashion a new vision for the Democratic Party.

But Kerry has an enormously broad spectrum of opinion to cover, as Gore's speech yesterday precisely illustrates. Though Gore himself gave Kerry an out of sorts, the contrast between the former veep's speech, which clearly excited Democrats, and Sen. Kerry's speech, which must at least appease them, could not be more striking.

The big question: does Gore et. al. give Kerry cover? Or do they rachet up the pressure and cleanly reveal the gulf between their two sides?

In a New York Times article about Sen. Kerry's preference for caution over aggression, Gore's speech is Adam Nagourney's device to lead in to an interview with the candidate.

As usual, the Los Angeles Times' Brownstein puts it best: "Senator John F. Kerry faces a stark new challenge in the campaign skirmishing over Iraq: As President Bush has moved toward his position, the Democratic Party is moving away from it." LINK

"The withdrawal idea is certain to receive more attention now that Win Without War, whose members include the influential liberal Internet advocacy group, MoveOn.org, has endorsed it after extensive deliberations."

"In the long run, these shifts in Democratic attitudes and Bush's strategy may pressure Kerry to break more sharply from the administration on Iraq, a step he has firmly resisted."

"More immediately, the squeeze is encouraging Kerry to subtly shift his critique of Bush on the war. In his response to Bush's speech on Iraq on Monday night, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee focused less on criticizing the president's policies than on questioning whether he could provide the international leadership to implement them."

Let us state for the record that there are many prominent Democrats (the article mentions Misters Gelb and Steinberg) — including some who might surprise you — who will soon be arguing publicly for withdrawal.