No retreat, no surrender

The campaign wanted to get a message across, and it did: George W. Bush hasn't made us safer, and Democrats can do better. "This soldier has news for you," retired Gen. Wesley Clark told the convention crowd Thursday night. "Anyone who tells you that one political party has a monopoly on the best defense of our nation is committing a fraud on the American people."

It's a critical point to make, Reich said. Americans already trust Democrats on the economy and other social issues, he said, but "a lot of Americans don't know enough to trust the Democrats on national security."

The Democrats spent the week building that case -- with veterans events, with endorsements from retired military officers, with story after story of Kerry's life-saving exploits in Vietnam -- and Kerry made the case himself Thursday night.

"As president," he said, "I will fight a smarter, more effective war on terror. We will deploy every tool in our arsenal: our economic as well as our military might; our principles as well as our firepower."

Kerry said there is a "right way and a wrong way to be strong." "Strength is more than tough words," he said. "After decades of experience in national security, I know the reach of our power and I know the power of our ideals. We need to make America once again a beacon in the world. We need to be looked up to and not just feared."

On Iraq, Kerry said: "I know what we have to do." He said America needs a new president, one who has "the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home."

While the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism made up the core of Kerry's speech, it wasn't his only focus. He talked of lowering the cost of prescription drugs; he vowed never to privatize Social Security. And on a day when a Bush-Cheney campaign aide was heard suggesting that American workers unhappy with low-paying jobs should try Prozac Kerry tried to show that he and John Edwards are closer to the concerns of average Americans.

"We value jobs that pay you more than the job you lost," Kerry said. "We value jobs where, when you put in a week's work, you can actually pay your bills, provide for your children and lift up the quality of your life. We value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed, but doing better."

Kerry also threw down the gantlet to Bush on religion and faith. "And let me say it plainly . . . in this campaign, we welcome people of faith," he said. "America is not us and them. I think of what Ron Reagan said of his father a few weeks ago, and I want to say this to you tonight: I don't wear my own faith on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side."

With the convention behind them, Kerry and Edwards will set out Friday on what the campaign calls "a continuous cross-country trip ... highlighting the optimistic American spirit that is at the heart of the Kerry-Edwards plan to build a stronger America." That's another way of saying that they'll be campaigning in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan.

They'll be joined in Pennsylvania by Gov. Rendell and the suddenly ubiquitous Ben Affleck. Rendell, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Thursday that Kerry should focus now on undecided voters and those who might be thinking about Ralph Nader. "That's the package," Rendell said. "Say Nader's got 4 percent, and there are six or seven percent undecided. That 11 percent might decide the election." Rendell said that Kerry and Edwards can sway undecided voters by showing them that they're "serious, intelligent adults" with a good plan for the economy. For potential Nader voters, the campaign will stress -- as Rep. Barney Frank did in a speech Thursday night -- that there are huge differences between the major parties, and that a vote for Nader is a vote that helps Bush stay in the White House.

While Rendell said that the Democratic base needs no further motivation, get-out-the-vote efforts will be important, particularly among minority communities. "We've got to vote like we've never before," said Georgia Rep. John Lewis. In African-American communities, Lewis said the Kerry campaign will be aided by "validators" -- African-Americans like Barack Obama and Kerry's swift boat gunner, the Rev. David Alston -- who can vouch for the candidate in the same way that he did for Bill Clinton in 1992. "John Kerry is going to have powerful validators, people saying, 'We know this man. We've worked with this man.'"

Thursday night in Boston, John Kerry vouched for himself. Along the way, he made it clear that Republicans don't have a monopoly on faith, on values or on patriotism. Earlier this week in Boston, former Sen. Bob Kerrey recalled the days after Sept. 11 as "the first time in my life when I felt genuine and not embarrassing patriotism." It was a time, the 9/11 commissioner said, when he felt "united with the rest of the country."

Again and again this week, Democrats have invoked the memories of those moments -- those days when the flag belonged to all Americans, when the world was by our side. "It was the worst day we have ever seen, but it brought out the best in all of us," Kerry said Thursday night. "There were no Democrats. There were no Republicans. There were only Americans. How we wish it had stayed that way."

Kerry called on Bush to help him bring Americans back together, even as he accused the president and his party of dividing the country in two.

Speaking directly to Bush, Kerry said, "In the weeks ahead, let's be optimists, not just opponents. Let's build unity in the American family, not angry division. Let's honor this nation's diversity; let's respect one another; and let's never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States."

"Tonight," Kerry said, "we have an important message for those who question the patriotism of Americans who offer a better direction for our country. Before wrapping themselves in the flag and shutting their eyes and ears to the truth, they should remember what America is really all about. They should remember the great idea of freedom for which so many have given their lives. Our purpose now is to reclaim democracy itself."

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