Kerry Just Doesn't Have It

Just ask his supporters.

John F. Kerry has shattered fundraising records, unified an oft-warring party and pushed past President Bush in some national polls. Yet many Democratic voters, officials and even members of Kerry's staff express an ambivalence -- or angst -- about their presidential candidate that belies this strong public standing.
These Democrats say the enthusiasm for defeating Bush runs much stronger and deeper than the passion for electing Kerry. The chief reason: The senator from Massachusetts, they say, has not crisply articulated what a Kerry presidency would stand for beyond undoing much of the Bush agenda.

So far, these concerns have not slowed Kerry. But if Kerry cannot change this perception coming out of next month's Democratic convention in Boston, it could prove much harder for the party to maximize turnout, win over Ralph Nader voters and keep independents from swinging to Bush, they say.

"There is a danger in that [ambivalence]," said John D. Podesta, White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration. "You can't just be against something. [Voters] want a positive vision of where the country is going, and he has to provide that."