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A presidential Kerry

By Scot Lehigh / October 1, 2004

LADIES AND gentlemen, you wake today to a whole new presidential race. Last night, John Kerry won as clear a debate victory as we've seen since Ronald Reagan outdueled Jimmy Carter in 1980.

The senator that Americans saw on stage was hardly the shilly-shallying caricature that George W. Bush had been lampooning on the campaign trail. Nor was he the flatfooted candidate who fumbled his way through a disastrous August. Instead, the Democratic challenger seemed more serious and substantive, more knowledgeable and confident, than the man who holds the job.

Kerry presented his nuanced Iraq stand in much clearer, more understandable fashion than he has in the past. And though the senator oversells the likelihood that his scheme for an international summit on Iraq will relieve the disproportionate burden on the United States, his critique of Bush's runup to war was pointed and effective. Kerry's best moment may have come when, in skewering Bush's judgment, he noted that one can be certain but be wrong.

Although Bush had some moments, at too many points the president seemed reduced to repeating simple assertions that sometimes bordered on the petulant: that a commander in chief couldn't send mixed messages, that Kerry, too, had seen Saddam as a threat in the months before the invasion, that people had to understand that nation-building is hard work.

Bush struck a particularly odd note when, in trying to rebut Kerry about the prewar need for more patience on Iraq, he insisted that more diplomacy wouldn't have persuaded Saddam to disarm. It was almost as though the president has forgotten that no stockpiles of forbidden weapons have been found in Iraq.

You can, of course, have a debate victory that doesn't change the underlying dynamics of the race. This one should, however. The reason Kerry has been lagging in this race is because of voter doubts about his strength and his resolve.

It's hard to imagine the average voter watching this debate and concluding that Kerry wasn't tough enough, or resolute enough, for the job. Not after a night when the challenger stood on the stage with the incumbent and seemed much more presidential.

Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is [e-mail].

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http://www.boston.com/news/politics/debates/articles/2004/10/01/a_presidential_kerry/