Kerry can deliver a strong speech. His convention performance was long but on target, and he was sharp Thursday night in Springfield, Ohio, when he finally fired back at Bush and Cheney for the Swift boat smears. Monday morning in West Virginia, the campaign made a stab at cohesiveness -- a too-cute-by-half speech built around the theme that "W" stands for "wrong." According to an advance text of the speech released by the campaign, Kerry said: "On every issue, from Iraq to healthcare, from jobs to education, W stands for wrong. Wrong choices. Wrong direction. It's time for a president who will lead America in a new direction."

The speech presented a new way to package the themes Kerry had been working toward all weekend. After going right at Bush and Cheney on Vietnam Friday night, Kerry moved farther away from the 35-year-old war -- and closer to the state of the U.S. economy today -- with each stop on the campaign trail. He used Iraq as a way in: Just as Bush misled the country about the war, Kerry said, he misled the country about the effect his tax cuts would have on job creation. By the time Kerry arrived in Steubenville Saturday night, Vietnam was all but gone from his speech. "I really don't want this race to be brought down to a place that's personal," Kerry said. Charging that Republicans wanted to make the race a referendum on what "might or might not have happened 35 years ago," Kerry said he doesn't "worry about those attacks."

It's still unclear just how aggressive the campaign will get. Pseudo-Democrat Susan Estrich has called on Kerry supporters to do the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth one better by founding "the Dead Texans for Truth, highlighting those who served in Vietnam instead of the privileged draft-dodging president, and ended up as names on the wall instead of members of the Air National Guard."

But Kerry's comments on the campaign trail suggest that he'd be uncomfortable going even half that far. When Kerry said that he didn't want the race to get "personal" Saturday night, he appeared to be distancing himself from some of the local partisans who had introduced him earlier in the day. One said that Bush had been "absent without leave" during his stint in the National Guard; another said Bush was "carrying out his responsibilities as a cheerleader at Yale" while Kerry was "carrying a gun" in Vietnam; a third said Bush was "hiding in the woods in Alabama" when he should have been serving his country. Kerry seemed uncomfortable with the tone of the attacks, and in Steubenville he backed away from them.

It wasn't the first time that Kerry seemed a step behind his supporters. At the Akron rally, a woman in the crowd shouted out that George W. Bush hates senior citizens. Kerry could have ignored her but took it upon himself to disavow the comment. "I hope that president doesn't hate anybody," he said, "and I hope we don't have hate in America." At a skeet-shooting photo op on a farm in Edinburg, Ohio, a supporter suggested painting the face of turncoat Sen. Zell Miller on one of the clay pigeons. Kerry laughed but said, "Well, I don't know about that."

It's hard to square Kerry's caution with the tough talk coming out of his campaign. As Kerry was speaking in Steubenville, his traveling press spokesman, David Wade, was telling Salon that the campaign will be hitting the Republicans hard every day between now and November. "We want to crush these guys," Wade said. "They made an enormous mistake questioning the heart and the patriotism of John Kerry, and they'll pay for it for the rest of their lives."

Wade said the campaign will take what he called the "Sean Connery approach" to future attacks from the right. It was a reference to the advice Connery's character in "The Untouchables" gave about beating Al Capone: "If they pull out a knife, we'll pull out a gun," Wade said. "We will always be on the offense, every day."

There were signs of new aggressiveness Sunday, as the Kerry campaign picked up and pushed news that retiring Florida Sen. Bob Graham will, in an upcoming book, charge that the Bush administration interfered with an investigation into Saudi links to the attacks of Sept. 11. News of Graham's allegations broke Sunday, and the campaign was out with a statement almost immediately. The Democrats also moved quickly on a new report indicating that additional documents seem to be missing from Bush's military file, distributing a statement in which DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe said Bush "has some explaining to do."

There may be more of the same in the days ahead as the mainstream media looks closer at Bush's military record and personal past. On Wednesday night, Ben Barnes is set to elaborate on his story of being "ashamed" he helped Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard, ahead of young men without family ties, on "60 Minutes II." Kitty Kelley's unauthorized biography of the Bush family comes out Sept. 14, and the blogs and tabloids are already salivating over the salacious details it may reveal.

Brazile said Kerry is right to go on the offensive, but that he's got to be careful when he does it. "It has to be a precision hit," she said, because Bush is the president and because large numbers of Americans bonded with him the moment those planes hit the twin towers. Brazile offered the beginnings of one theme that could work: "On Sept. 11, he led us. On Sept. 12, he misled us."

Brazile said Kerry has plenty of time to turn the race around, but that he has got to start soon. The Kerry campaign stresses the candidate's reputation as a closer: He pulled victory from defeat in Iowa in the primaries, and he came from behind to beat Bill Weld in the Massachusetts race. When the going gets tough enough, his aides and supporters say, Kerry will find within himself all of the intensity he needs. As the Ohio trip ended, Kucinich said that Democrats have "got the issues with them, and I think we've got the guy who can deliver now." The key: Kerry has to do it. "He has to," Kucinich said. "He has to." An aide agreed. A majority of Americans believe that it's time for a change in the White House, the aide said, "But John Kerry himself has to close the deal."

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