Demos divided over Kerry's campaign

WASHINGTON — Democrats following the presidential campaign are divided into two factions these days: people who are frustrated that John Kerry isn't crushing President Bush in polls, and people who say Kerry is in great shape compared to past challengers.

"Gas prices are up, the stock market is down, Iraq is a mess, and John Kerry is saying to himself, 'How am I going to beat this guy?' " David Letterman joked Monday night on CBS, summing up the sentiments of the first group.

Kerry's team says it's amazing that he's tied with a wartime president after a $60 million ad campaign against him. "They (the Bush campaign) thought they would unleash this and we would be standing before you dead. That is not the case," Kerry's campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, said in an interview Tuesday.

Bush has been under siege for weeks over violence against Americans in Iraq and the Iraqi prisoner-abuse scandal.

Despite Bush's difficult stretch, most polls show the presidential race tied. Kerry's inability to break away, along with perceived missteps by him and his campaign, has fueled so many critiques that online commentator Mickey Kaus of Slate has started a "Dem Panic Watch" — a catalog of columns and stories about everything from Kerry team infighting to advice to lighten up.

"I've always thought Kerry was a terrible candidate," Kaus, a Democrat, said in an interview. "I think he is proving that . . . now. Democrats are definitely panicking."

But Paul Begala, an architect of Bill Clinton's 1992 victory, said Democrats "whining about Kerry have no sense of history, no sense of strategy." Case in point: Clinton was in third place behind President George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot at this point in 1992.

But critiques persist. Among them:

• Kerry has failed to offer a dramatic alternative to Bush on Iraq. Kerry says he'd push harder to involve international institutions. He says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign. But mostly he's stayed low-profile — for instance, talking about health care Tuesday in Kentucky. "This is George Bush's war," Cahill said.

• Bush ads painted Kerry as a flip-flopper and weak on security for weeks before Kerry started a $25 million biographical ad campaign last week. "It's amazing to me that those weren't up earlier," said Ken Goldstein, director of a national ad study at the University of Wisconsin.