Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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Bob Novak nails it:

On the Republican convention's last day, word spread about Kerry's newest tactic: going to Springfield, Ohio, for a midnight rally targeting both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for missing combat in Vietnam. That puzzled the president's strategists, who figured Kerry would want to close the door on investigation of his own combat record. He instead delivered a glancing blow at Cheney's student draft deferments 40 years ago and then, in a meandering stump speech, drifted from health care to Iraq and back to health care. His late-night audience, in the picturesque Ohio town square, seemed anesthetized...

After windsurfing at Nantucket, Kerry addressed the American Legion convention in what had been billed as an attack on his Swift boat veteran detractors. Instead, he delivered a quiet critique of Iraq war policy, which was unenthusiastically received by the Legion. That was followed by Thursday night's speech in which Kerry attacked his opponents "who refused to serve" in Vietnam — that is, Bush and Cheney.

A midnight rally in Springfield, Ohio, is nothing like an acceptance speech at Madison Square Garden, but the unfair comparison was not flattering to Kerry. Bush delivered a conservative speech to a conservative party but also as a war president. After shocking his supporters earlier by saying he would still vote for Bush's war resolution, Kerry in Ohio Thursday night declared the president "misled America into Iraq." The Democratic nominee continues to define himself.

If Kerry doesn't recover in the coming weeks, the late night rally in Springfield will be remembered as his "Dean scream" moment.

[Posted 09/06 12:04 PM]