Hawks vs hawks in US Polls 2004

Democratic Party unleashes its new and muscular potential with Kerry snapping off a crisp salute to announce he was reporting for wartime duty.

The program was crammed with aging combat veterans and retired military brass. The presidential candidate strode up to the podium, snapped off a crisp salute and announced he was reporting for wartime duty.

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Welcome to the new, muscular Democratic Party of the United States.

It used to be easy to tell the hawks from the doves here, but not any more since traditionally pacifist Democrats started beefing up their defense stance for November's presidential election.

The move was abundantly clear at the party's convention in Boston last week where Senator John Kerry went all out to promote his credentials as a potential commander in chief to replace President George W. Bush.

The decorated war hero brought along his "band of brothers" from Vietnam to testify to his courage under fire, and mustered a dozen retired generals and admirals to extoll his mettle.

Taking a central chapter from Bush's playbook, he solemnly proclaimed the United States a "nation at war" against global terrorism and said he would not flinch to go into battle with or without allies to protect the country.

Presidential historians say the last time the Democrats took such a tough, martial tone at their convention, they were nominating Franklin Roosevelt for a fourth term in the midst of World War II.

Since then they have been more associated with peace, love and anti-war protest. But that was before the September 11, 2001, terror attacks that rocked the world and left Bush running for re-election as a self-described "war president."

"I think the Democrats realize that being overtly doveish may be a risky strategy this year," said Eric Davis, a political science professor at Middlebury College in Vermont and an expert on presidential campaigns.

"In their hearts they may be doves, but in their heads they know that having military imagery up there may help get rid of George W. Bush and is something to be endured for the next three months," Davis told AFP.

If a post-convention "bounce" has given Kerry a new lead in the polls over Bush, the surveys also show the incumbent still preferred by voters as more decisive and able to manage the war on terror.

The Democrat's strategy at last week's convention was clear: focus on security, launch a frontal attack on Bush for botching the Iraq war and homeland defense, and to present Kerry as ready and able to take over.

More than half of Kerry's 50-minute acceptance speech Thursday was devoted to national security, pledging to repair battered global alliances and never put US troops in harm's way unless there was a "real and imminent" threat.

He continued that assault Sunday, appearing on a full slate of US television talk shows to talk up his stance on defense and military issues.

"When a policy isn't working, one of the things I learned in Vietnam is, you stand up and you fight to make it work for the troops," Kerry said on ABC television's "This Week" program, invoking once more his status as a decorated Vietnam war veteran.

"I voted to defend those troops by changing the policy," he said. "It's that simple."

He insisted his defense stance would be more nuanced, but no less hard-hitting, than Bush's.

"As president, I will defend this nation. I will not hesitate to use force wherever necessary, with swiftness and certainty, in order to protect America," Kerry added.

"But I also know that strength is not just tough words, strength is using the power of our ideals."

Kerry also injected steroids into the Democratic Party platform with his call for 40,000 more troops to bolster an overstetched US military, and a doubling of elite special forces troops.

Kerry's rising hawkishness comes at a time when Bush, perhaps chastened by plunging approval for the Iraq operation, is having second thoughts and starting to call himself a would-be "peace president."

Some analysts said Kerry could risk alienating the left-wing of the Democratic party which wants a bolder exit strategy for Iraq. But others say there is little chance any of these voters would move over to Bush.

More dangerous, they say, is the possibility that Kerry might end up putting all his eggs in the security basket without staking out clear policy differences with the Republicans.

Some leading US newspapers, including The New York Times and Washington Post, criticized Kerry's speech for failing to lay out exactly what he would do in Iraq. USA Today said his words "sound a lot like those of President Bush."

But campaign spokesman David Wade rejected the assessment and said the candidate roared out of Boston with his mission accomplished: "If people did come united against George Bush, they left united behind John Kerry."