DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION Kerry's image must front campaign

Kerry remains unfamiliar to one out of three likely voters.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
BOSTON -- For more than a year, Democrats have united behind their red-hot loathing of President Bush, eager to back whoever they thought might beat him. One of their most common campaign buttons: "Anyone but Bush."
Now, gathering for their four-day national convention starting Monday, they have to shift their message for the campaign's final hundred days: They have to persuade non-Democrats to trust Sen. John Kerry as a worthy alternative to the incumbent president.
To do that, they must convince voters to forget about past Democratic candidates and to trust today's Democrats to be tough-minded guardians of the nation's security and to be stewards of a vibrant economy. They need Americans to warm to the cool, patrician Kerry. And they probably should avoid "Fahrenheit 9/11"-style Bush bashing, which surely would rouse delegates in the hall, but might scare swing-voting suburbanites watching on television.
They have to do it when live network TV coverage will be highly limited -- ABC, CBS and NBC each will broadcast only three prime-time hours for the entire week. That could hamper Kerry's ability to reach the relatively small pool of still-undecided voters and reduce the usual "bounce" in approval that most candidates get coming out of their party conventions.
Best shape
Despite all those challenges, Democrats enter their convention in the best shape of any party taking on an incumbent president since Republican Ronald Reagan faced Democratic President Carter in 1980. Since 1952, challengers have trailed incumbent presidents by an average of 17 percentage points in the weeks just before their conventions. At the same point, Kerry is tied with Bush -- and about to seize the national stage.
"We're doing better than any other challenger at this point in history," said Jeanne Shaheen, the chairwoman of Kerry's campaign and a former governor of New Hampshire.
Perhaps, but Kerry still must use the convention to introduce himself to the country, frame his message and build momentum.
Despite almost two decades in the U.S. Senate, Kerry remains unfamiliar to one out of three likely voters. Even many who've decided they don't like Bush haven't yet decided whether they do like Kerry.
Using the convention as a stage for a weeklong commercial, Democrats from former President Clinton to Kerry's fellow Vietnam veterans will testify to his heroism and his strength. Kerry will be the first combat veteran nominated by Democrats since McGovern in 1972 and the first to boast of his combat record since John F. Kennedy in 1960.
McGovern was a World War II veteran, but he ran for president as an opponent of the Vietnam War and helped set the Democrats' antiwar image, which Kerry wants to reverse. The party's intended message this year couldn't be more clear: The official description of the convention's nightly themes uses the words "strong" or "strengthen" 18 times in seven paragraphs.