The Note

ByABC News
April 15, 2004, 4:04 PM

W A S H I N G T O N, April 15&#151;<br> -- TODAY SCHEDULE (all times ET)

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NEWS SUMMARY

By 2005, three of the last four American presidential elections will have featured a Republican nominee named "Bush" attempting to paint the Democratic nominee as a waffler who is weak on defense and an inveterate tax raiser.

Up until now, that strategy stands at one win and won loss.

While there are many factors that determine whether this strategy works or not, two things are certain:

1. All three targets Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry have given the Bushes ample material with which to work on all three fronts both historical and during the campaigns themselves.

2. Bill Clinton was able to overcome the label-pasting for a variety for reasons, not the least his prodigious, once-in-a-generation political skills.

Republicans don't mind admitting on the record these days that they are using their paid and earned media to try to define Kerry as a flip flopper who will raise taxes as president (and today is, of course, tax day), but they seem to have made the decision to work the national security angle a bit more subtly (as in the elliptical messages of the early BC04 ads).

We agree with Karl Rove that there is nothing wrong with or improperly political about going to the country and making the case that the GOP is stronger on security issues, but the campaign seems to think that all the tsoris it gets from the press over attempts to put before the voters what is arguably the most important issue of the presidential race just isn't worth it.

We wouldn't be surprised if BC04 decides today to remind people of John Kerry's record of voting "against things before he votes for them," or was it "for them before he votes against them," and maybe the midday Ken Mehlman/Matt Dowd news conference call will make all this clearer to you.

Don't act like Bill Clinton didn't give plenty of ammunition for the Bush/41 attacks on him on all three fronts. Those presidential visits to Waffle Houses across the fruited plain came with a lot of talking points.

Our favorite: when Clinton rapid responder Betsey Wright's challenged the Bush-Quayle claim that Clinton had raised taxes 128 times in Arkansas by saying it was only 127 (and, no, we aren't kidding).

But Bill Clinton was able to put the economy in play as THE issue of the race, and he was also able to outflank President Bush on some national security issues (Bosnia, China, etc.).

(And Kerry has a chance on that today, with the AP reporting: "The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits, after having fallen to the lowest level in four years, shot up last week by the biggest amount since late 2002. The new report dealt a setback to hopes that the economy is finally beginning to produce a sustained recovery in jobs.")

Clinton, please recall, also used Iran-Contra, "read my lips," and other elements of the Bush record to raise doubts about President Bush's credibility and, even, character, thereby neutralizing those same attacks on him.

Suffice to say, Al Gore, flat on his back from all the flip-flopper/tax-raiser/soft-on-defense defining that was done to him, was never able to score those jujitsu points on the man we now call 43 (Yes, yes, Terry and James and Paul we know all about the popular vote.).

After months of attacking President Bush's policies, Sen. Kerry is stepping up an assault on his rival's character, challenging Bush's credibility on everything from job creation to the war in Iraq.

Stopping just short of calling the president a liar, Kerry routinely accuses Bush of "running up a truth deficit" and compiling "a long list of broken promises."

His strategy is risky. By challenging Bush's truthfulness, the presumptive Democratic nominee invites scrutiny of his reputation for vacillation and seemingly contradictory stands, such as backing the president's decision on whether to go to war with Iraq but against continued funding for military operations and the country's reconstruction.

"They're swimming way upstream on this one," said Matthew Dowd, a top strategist for the president's reelection effort.

But the reward for Kerry also is potentially significant, as the Massachusetts Senator aims at one of Bush's biggest political strengths: his image as a leader who talks straight and is resolute in his positions.

But much of the erosion appears rooted in growing public doubts about the war in Iraq and, as some see it, the disconnect between the results Bush promised and the way events have played out.

"There are no weapons of mass destruction. After the capture of Saddam it got worse, not better," said one Republican campaign strategist, who has been close to the White House and did not want to be identified as a critic of Bush's policies.

"All of the markers they set have been bogus as far as what the reality turned out to be."

Supporters of the President believe events in Iraq will ultimately bolster Bush's case for reelection. The Republican strategist who criticized the president's handling of Iraq also asserted that Kerry was "all over the map" on the issue.

"It's one thing to accuse Bush of playing fast and loose and another to be seen as a viable alternative," the strategist said. "It's two steps, not just one."

Whether Kerry can turn Bush's character and credibility from an asset to a liability depends on many things apart from the president's performance, analysts said. Not least is whether the Democratic hopeful who is still introducing himself to voters comes to be seen as honest and trustworthy himself.

After bombarding television viewers with almost $50 million in advertisements for a month, President Bush's re-election campaign is curtailing its ads in 18 competitive states.

Officials say the move, slated to start Friday, follows the campaign's long-term ad strategy to flood airwaves only when voters are paying attention to the presidential race.

"We had planned on doing waves of advertising in higher and lower amounts from the very beginning," depending on "windows of opportunity" when public interest was high, Dowd, the campaign's chief strategist, said Wednesday.

Dowd said internal polls show the ads accomplished their goal of casting Kerry in a negative light early in the race.

"The two things voters know about Kerry today more than anything else is that he's a flip-flopper and he's going to raise your taxes," Dowd said.

President Bush's $10-million-per-week advertising blitz, intended to define Kerry as a liberal who voted against defense and intelligence spending, was firing up some voters in swing states until the news coming out of the 9/11 Commission started to drown out Bush's ads.

Meanwhile, Kerry's long-awaited initiative on job creation, which was supposed to bond the patrician Massachusetts Democrat with blue-collar voters, has been doubly trumped: First, by surprisingly strong job growth in March, then by the explosion of fighting in Iraq.

The result is two candidates stymied in their early attempts to frame the 2004 presidential race to their advantage. In each case, the candidate found his carefully crafted playbook shredded by events beyond his control.

Now, supporters of both candidates agree, uncertainty surrounding all major issues Iraq, Al Qaeda, jobs, and energy prices has left Bush and Kerry standing flat-footed on shifting sands.

They could stay in that position for months, analysts say.

After a string of presidential elections heavily influenced by strategic maneuvers, from George H.W. Bush's "Willie Horton" attacks to George W. Bush's embrace of "compassionate conservatism," leaders of past campaigns increasingly believe this contest is going to be determined by events off the campaign trail.

-- Mark Barabak, Liz Sidoti, Peter S. Canellos, and 1,000 Googling monkeys all contributed to The Note summary today.

(Note to Howie Kurtz: this is not a Stephen Glass issue. It is satire.)

President Bush speaks about the economy in Des Moines, Iowa, in the very same Marriott he first came out for ethanol subsidies.

Sen. Kerry attends a DNC breakfast and meets with the prelate of the Greek Orthodox Church in New York before heading to Washington, D.C. to deliver remarks at Howard University and to meet with Washington's Archbishop at Kerry's residence before heading to East Rutherford, N.J. for a fundraiser.

Vice President Cheney is in China and South Korea.

The FEC continues its hearings on the status of 501(c) groups and 527s. And today is a deadline for numerous campaign finance reports to be turned into the agency.

The politics of Israel, Iraq and national security:

The New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller reports "a major shift in American policy" announced by President Bush yesterday with Prime Minister Sharon at this side. LINK

Bumiller goes on to get a Bush Administration official to make some Israeli political predictions. "'There's a great deal of suspicion of Sharon that's a fact,' the senior administration official said. He then predicted that 'in a month this coalition government will fall, and will be replaced with a different coalition with Labor in it.'"

"'Palestinians are more comfortable with that,' the official added."

Palestinian leaders directed sharp criticism at President Bush yesterday after he announced his support for Israel's peace plan reports Greg Myre of the New York Times . LINK

The Washington Post's Milbank and Allen assess the benefits and risks for Bush by embracing Sharon's plan. LINK

More articles in the Washington Post: LINK and LINK

On Wednesday, Kerry stated that Bush's stubbornness in Iraq has put U.S troops at risk, reports the Washington Post's Dan Balz.