"You don't want to pussyfoot around the word or pretend nobody ever made the criticism," says Ruy Teixeira, political analyst and coauthor of "The Emerging Democratic Majority." As a deficit hawk who supported the 1996 welfare reform bill and is essentially a free-trader, Kerry has a considerably more moderate record than many believe, anyway.

Kerry's repeated use of the word "mainstream" also suggests his campaign has been studying the rhetoric of 1988, since it's the very term George Bush used to describe himself that year. "I am not a big L-word candidate," Bush proclaimed just before the 1988 election. "I am more in tune with the mainstream of the United States of America." To be sure, lefties with their own pugilistic streaks would doubtless prefer if a Democrat embraced the term "liberal," but Kerry will have to hope that in 2004, the left really is prepared to vote pragmatically.

Then again, the words "mainstream" and "extremist" are not by themselves magic bullets, any more than "liberal" is. Kerry's self-identification as "mainstream" will work best when tied to a forceful critique of Bush. That's why, in 2004, being able to fend off GOP attacks is only, well, half the battle. Putting Bush on the defensive is the other half.

"I think an offensive strategy is called for," says Teixeira, adding the Democrats should "not just be talking about Kerry's record, but deliberately typecasting Bush and the people around him as being in many ways extremists." Fortunately for Kerry, this administration offers Kerry what military planners call a target-rich environment.

Take civil liberties. "Mentioning John Ashcroft always gets a big round of applause whenever any Democrat attacks him for anything," says Payne, "because he's seen as the Sherpa of the Bush administration, helping them get to the very top of the right-wing mountain." Yes, those were Democrats clapping during the primaries. But the administration's attempt to regulate civil society upsets libertarian-minded voters; independents are more strongly opposed to Bush's proposed gay marriage ban than Democrats. "These people are not looking for more direction in their lives," notes Payne. "They're looking for less." Using the issue to frame Bush as an extremist could help Kerry precisely among the swing voters he must court.

Kerry should also remember that Republicans -- whether intentionally or through a habitual reflex -- usually attack in areas where they themselves have vulnerabilities. Bush started claiming Kerry flip-flopped at the same moment Bush reversed his 2000 position on gay marriage. It's also Bush who has performed the true flip-flop on trade, with his made-in-West Virginia steel tariffs. And when Ed Gillespie says the Democrats plan to run "the dirtiest campaign in modern presidential politics," he's really just signaling his own intentions, while trying to insulate his party from one-way criticism on the subject.

Still, the Democrats have had issues to run on before, without finding the right way to frame them. "It's one thing to criticize Bush constantly for all the bad things he does," says Teixeira, but "it's a little bit trickier to get that across to people thematically. But that would be a good thing to do if they could do it." Kerry's best recent thematic attack may be his claim that Bush is running "the biggest say-one-thing, do-another administration in the history of our country." The language needs streamlining, but the idea is right: A general criticism that applies to many issues and takes aim at Bush's drooping credibility.

But if Kerry still needs to sharpen his rhetoric, the good news for Democrats is that his political career has largely been one long fight to win over moderates and swing voters -- "mainstream" voters, if you will. Massachusetts certainly has well-known liberal pockets (Cambridge, Brookline and Newton, the Northampton-Amherst axis), but much of the state's population consists of social conservatives, often Catholics, who are willing to vote for either ticket.

Moreover, Kerry has often reached these voters with not just words, but cultural symbolism that may resonate in 2004. During his first Senate race, in 1984, a group of Vietnam-veteran supporters -- the self-styled "Dog Hunters" -- helped erase Kerry's elitist image. In his toughest reelection campaign, against popular then-governor William Weld in 1996, Kerry made preserving veterans' benefits a central part of his message, just as he has this year. Kerry's support of firefighters after a fatal blaze in Worcester in 1999 helped solidify his connection with them; now yellow-and-black clad Firefighters for Kerry are a familiar campaign presence. (Kerry himself didn't need to criticize the 9/11 imagery in Bush's new ads; firefighters did it for him.) With police supporters joining the fold, Kerry has the visible backing of three groups that are post-9/11 symbols of toughness and courage -- and do not represent cultural liberalism.

That's one reason Kerry fared well with less affluent voters and Catholics in the primaries. And Catholics are not just any demographic group; they comprise a large chunk of the Midwestern swing voters Democrats covet. When Bush successfully cast Dukakis as a liberal in 1988, Dukakis' support among Catholics dropped from 55 percent in July to 40 percent by the election, and he suffered narrow losses in classic battlegrounds like Illinois, Pennsylvania and Missouri. George W. Bush beat Al Gore by 5 points among Catholics in 2000. But if Kerry can win among these voters, he can win the election.

Here Kerry has one further advantage: He is Catholic, if not especially public about his beliefs. That may change. Recently he has been opening up to voters a little about his religious feelings and altar-boy background. Should he continue to do so, pundits may smirk. But in 2004, Kerry will need every weapon at his disposal; that's politics. Ask William Weld, who recently said Bush should expect "man-to-man combat."

So is John Kerry really a fighter? Even his opponents think so.

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