Brozak isn't saying how much money his campaign has right now. But he acknowledges that he's nowhere near as well-funded as his opponent. To counteract that, he's working hard at retail politics. Three days a week he puts on a suit and stands in front of train stations from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., greeting commuters on their way to work. "Steve is the only man who's out there early in the morning," says Anthony Stevens, manager of the Cranford Station, a small stop on the New Jersey Transit.

During the blurry dawn this past Monday, the candidate stands outside Stevens' station and greets each harried commuter as he or she walks by. "Hi, I'm Steve Brozak, and I'm looking to become your congressman," he says, pressing campaign literature into their hands. After that, he goes to local diners, again introducing himself to everyone there. His bearing is slightly stiff and all the glad-handing seems like humbling work for a man who's used to being saluted. But it seems to be paying off, as people are starting to recognize him.

At the train station, several people slap his back and promise him their votes. At a diner afterward, he approaches Bob Beller, a graying assets manager in a blue blazer who was finishing his breakfast, only to find out that Beller has already contributed to his campaign and plans to give more. Ferguson, says Beller, is "a Stepford wife. All these local Republicans say exactly what they're told to say." Nodding approvingly at Brozak, who had moved on to another table, he says, "He's the kind of guy the Democrats need to win."

Brozak remains a fiscal conservative and a fervent booster of the military. But there's not much Republican left in him. These days he shares the conviction, nearly ubiquitous among Democratic activists, that the current administration represents something new and uniquely threatening in American life. The Republican Party, he says, has been "hijacked by a reactionary group that is truly dangerous."

He talks about what he learned in Bosnia four years ago. "Here was a country where people were living normal lives, and everything just fell apart overnight," he says. "It showed me how fragile societies can be. Make no mistake. Our society is very fragile."

Of course, the right is quick to seize on this kind of language to attack their critics as raving leftists. Yet in the past few years, this note of crisis has been sounded by those who've spent their lives as staid centrists: Al Gore, Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke. No matter how many respectable establishment types sound the alarm against Bush, though, much of the media continues to write off their warnings as irrational "Bush hatred."

Eventually, Brozak says, "people will start to realize how bad things are." After all, he says, 70 percent of New Jersey's National Guard has been called up. A unit from Westfield, one of the towns in his district, is about to be sent to Tikrit and probably won't be home until 2006.

At the same time, the crisis in enlistment and retention that Brozak predicted is starting to come true. Last week, it was reported that the National Guard missed its recruitment goals by 5,000, the first time it's fallen short in a decade. On Sept. 27, the New York Times reported that some Army planners want to cut soldiers' 12-month combat tours to improve morale and reenlistment. But others say they can't do that and still meet requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Rocky Mountain News has reported that some Iraq veterans stationed in Colorado have been threatened with second tours in Iraq if they refuse to reenlist. On Monday, USA Today reported that more than a third of soldiers called up from the Individual Ready Reserve failed to report on time.

Bad news about Iraq only matters to voters, though, if they are paying attention to it. Shaftan, the conservative pollster, says they're not. "Yeah, there's activity going on there, but there's nothing going on here. The terrorism, national security issue is one where Bush has a huge lead. People don't know the details, they just know that things are safer and nobody's flying planes into buildings."

This kind of thinking poses a particular challenge to a candidate like Brozak. How does a man warning of imminent disaster talk to voters who prefer optimism to candor? Brozak's energy comes from the huge gap between the military reality he's seen and the rhetoric he's hearing from the administration. Still, that same gap can make some voters think he's the extremist.

The danger, says Rebovich, is that voters will hear him and think, "Pal, you think you're well meaning, but you're an angry Marine. That's the downfall of a military person. In some ways, that was the downfall of Wesley Clark. At some point, people say, 'Oh my God, we hope a lot of Marines aren't thinking like you. Just shut up and fight.'"

Brozak sees the danger. Indeed, it's part of what so alarms him about this political moment. "If you repeat a lie often enough, people will start to believe it," he says.

He only hopes the same maxim will apply to the truth.

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