...and being that it's the New Republic, it's a fairly safe bet that the Kerry staff have read this.
http://tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=express&s=dryer101304It's subscription only, but here is a taste:
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<...> Kerry is not a Dukakis-Mondale Democrat. He may not be a true Clinton centrist, but on the spectrum of political ideology he's closer to the nominee from Arkansas than the last one from Massachusetts.
The liberal attack line succeeded against Dukakis in 1988 and Mondale in 1984 because it was largely true. One can argue for the merits of the two men's positions, but disputing their politics is impossible--both candidates unabashedly embraced the Democratic Party's left wing. Dukakis's "I'm a proud liberal" declaration essentially did George H.W. Bush's work for him--all campaign strategist Lee Atwater had to do was heap on the now-infamous images of Willie Horton and Dukakis in a tank. Mondale similarly opened himself to the liberal attack. Referring to higher taxes in his acceptance speech may have been an admirable attempt to level with the American people, but it played directly into Reagan's hands.
Kerry, by contrast, has not embraced the party's left. He has attempted to hew to the rough New Democrat consensus on a variety of issues. As Jon Chait argued in his deconstruction of the flip-flopper attack, one reason the waffler charges have proved tough for Kerry to dodge is that "New Democrat-style centrism saddles its adherents with positions that straddle the political divide." Indeed, a quick review of Kerry's positions shows how he has eschewed unreconstructed Democratic liberalism. On foreign and military affairs, the senator is more skeptical about the use of American power than Bush, but he has also attacked the president from the right on issues such as troop strength. In domestic and economic affairs, Kerry has proposed a health-care plan that is far smaller than Clinton's, been a consistent supporter of free trade, and established an admirable record as a deficit hawk. In 1992, Republicans couldn't get the liberal label to stick to Clinton because it simply did not fit his record. It's hard to see how it fits Kerry's either.
But just because the attack shouldn't work doesn't mean it won't. Clinton avoided the liberal label not only because of his positions but also because of his political skill. Kerry was on the ropes earlier in the race because he failed to effectively hit back on the flip-flopper attack. (Al Gore made the same mistake--he never got a chance to reject the liberal label because the serial exaggerator critique proved so successful that Republicans never changed their message.) By now, Kerry should see Bush coming at him with what some observers have called the Scarlet "L"; he must be ready with an effective parry. Fortunately for the Democrats, Bush is open to any number of counterattacks. Particularly on the "tax-and-spend" and "big government" charges, Kerry need only direct attention back to the president's own record. Bush has developed his own form of government expansion, perhaps best described as slash-and-spend. The anti-government Republican faithful may convince themselves that Bush has a cunning "starve the beast" plan to downsize the federal government by bankrupting it, but most conservatives--not to mention most average voters--realize that the president has made a mockery of conservatism's emphasis on restraint and fiscal prudence.
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