What sort of candidate do voters normally cast their ballots for?  The one who appears confident or who appears desperate?  Obviously, Americans typically ally themselves with the candidate who seems most confident in their capacity to lead and who appears least desperate in their quest to achieve the presidency (or maintain their incumbency).  Now that the conventions are over, both sides are in a tentative, albeit temporary, agreement: the confident candidate as we begin this final stretch is President George W. Bush.

At the end of the Democratic National Convention, his apologists in the media insisted that Senator John Kerry’s lack of a polling bounce was due to the partisan rift that deeply divides this country.  With the Republican National Convention still a month off, it was an irrefutable statement.  But, with the RNC now over and several polls suggesting an eleven-point bounce for Bush, Kerry’s campaign, and its media sympathizers, are desperately searching for a reason for his sagging popularity.

This desperation has already caused, and only exacerbates, the problems Kerry created through his refusal to offer a clear explanation of his views at the DNC.  He focused on his four months in Vietnam rather than on substantial policy proposals.  The Democrats insist that Bush is a stubborn, arrogant man, yet it is their own candidate’s refusal to offer real alternatives that has partially caused their dilemma.  Kerry insisted that he was running as a wartime president and hung his leadership credentials on his Vietnam service, a time when he unquestionably served honorably.  (The question of whether or not he deserved all of the medals he received is irrelevant since many other soldiers served in the same conflict and manner without winning any.)  In order to appease his radical anti-war base, however, Kerry had to also remind the country of his 1971 Senate testimony in opposition to the Vietnam War.  This was the only way Kerry could expect to smoothly escape the DNC and appease the anti-war radicals that attended.  He had to use it, regardless of the political fallout it might cause among the electorate because he was desperate for a smooth convention.

As one would expect, there was a group readily available to explain Kerry’s record, but it wasn’t the sanctioned story that Kerry wanted told.  His response was poorly conceived.  He attacked Bush based on some tepid connections to the 527 group, but conveniently ignored his own campaign’s innumerable ties to similar groups that compared Bush to Hitler.  Kerry threatened the veterans with lawsuits if they didn’t stop.  That is, he sought to silence people exercising their freedom of speech in a manner no different than the protesters that flooded New York’s streets declaring Bush a liar.

On the other hand, Bush was confident before, during, and after the RNC, and while Kerry and the Democrats insist that the incumbent’s confidence is actually a thinly veiled arrogance, that is an unfair critique of the occupant of a position that requires an unshakable certainty at every moment of every day.  Bush used his hour-long acceptance speech to outline a clear agenda for his second term and while specifics were missing – most glaringly how the various big-government proposals would be paid for – at least there were ideas.  Like him or hate him, one must concede that Bush has a capacity for leadership and self-confidence that is astounding.

Kerry’s actions after the RNC continued to demonstrate his desperation.  Seconds after Bush left the stage, Kerry gave a speech blasting the president, vice president, and other RNC speakers for daring to question is patriotism – an assertion never made by anyone.  They questioned his ability to lead, but not more than Kerry and his subordinates question Bush’s.  Kerry’s fanatical devotion to his Vietnam credentials, and his insistence that those who question his service are also questioning his patriotism, reveals something about the state of his political campaign.

They are desperate.  When compared against the relative confidence of the Bush campaign, it leaves Kerry with a significant problem.  Kerry needs to offer a clear message of what he stands for beyond the simplistic “not Bush” rhetoric that has been the primary element of his campaign right through the DNC.  Americans want to believe Kerry has ideas, but they also want to know who he is now, not who he was thirty years ago.  Nevertheless he stubbornly refuses to answer these questions, leaving us to wonder why.

The American people will not wait long for an answer.  If the campaigning continues as it did prior to the conventions, it will leave the people with one simple question on November 2: desperation or confidence, Kerry or Bush?

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