PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN Kerry warns of potential for revival of military draft

The Bush camp accused Kerry of 'fear-mongering.'
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MILWAUKEE -- Sen. John Kerry warned Friday that there's "great potential" that the military draft will be revived if President Bush is re-elected, a charge Bush had denied firmly in the second presidential debate and one that his campaign spokesman denounced anew Friday as "fear-mongering."
The flap showed how a single remark by either candidate at this hyper-intense stage of the campaign -- with only 17 days left until Election Day -- can be seized on by the press to the point that it overwhelms the more deliberate messages the candidates intend to send.
Bush's aides call these last days the "final sprint." On Friday, the president's dominant message was that Kerry is a tax-and-spend liberal. Kerry's camp sees this as the time to make the "closing argument" for his presidency. His intended theme Friday was that, under Bush's presidency, America's middle class has been squeezed by economic hardship.
But both campaigns' messages were drowned out by the renewed flap over the draft.
The hard-fought swing state of Iowa awoke to a large headline atop the Des Moines Register: "Kerry: Potential great for return of draft."
The story, based on an interview Kerry gave the newspaper's editors Thursday evening, quoted the Massachusetts senator as saying: "With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of the draft. Because if we go it alone, I don't know how you do it with the current overextension" of U.S. forces.
Bush flatly rejected any suggestion during the debates that he'd reinstate the draft. "We're not going to have a draft, period," he pledged in the Oct. 8 debate in St. Louis. To curb rumors that a draft was imminent, the House of Representatives voted 402-2 earlier this month against a proposal to renew the draft.
Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt accused Kerry on Friday of making a desperate grab for votes. "John Kerry's efforts to spread false Internet rumors on the draft undermine his own credibility," Schmidt said. "He has demonstrated for the second day in a row that he is a candidate willing to do or say anything to score political points. The American people saw John Kerry this week cast aside any attempt at decency, and his fear-mongering today confirms that."
Kerry camp's response
Kerry senior adviser Michael McCurry said the senator simply was responding to a question and that his answer was consistent with concerns he'd raised before about the demands Bush was placing on the military.
"He just was talking about the possibility of that," McCurry said. "He was doing this in response to a question he got in the editorial board. ... He answered that question just like he has answered it in previous occasions in town halls, and I think that was something they picked out of the conversation to be newsworthy."
To be sure, the Kerry campaign thinks the issue resonates with young voters. "If you go and talk to any college kid on any campus, or report out what people are nervous about, you run into this. I mean, we get asked this all the time. ... This is something people are very worried about," McCurry said.
To make his closing argument, Kerry has toughened his stump speech with mocking asides that give a sharper edge to his litany of complaints about Bush's stewardship of the country. Though Iraq remains a dominant issue for voters, Kerry is sticking to a domestic-policy message directed at the middle class.
State of the economy
"Right now, we've got an economy where people feel like they're on a treadmill, running faster and faster with each passing year. But they're not getting ahead. They're staying in place -- and they're falling behind," Kerry told supporters and students at Milwaukee Area Technical college. "This economy has a bad case of the flu and it needs a new medicine."
The thrust of Kerry's message, his aides said, is that Bush has made a series of mistakes, from the economy to stem cell research.
"The president has proven beyond a doubt that he's out of touch, out of ideas and unwilling to change course," Kerry said. "He can spin until he's dizzy, but at the end of the day, who does he think the American people are going to believe: George Bush or their own eyes?"
At stops in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Oshkosh, Wis., Bush accused Kerry of being out of touch with reality on issues such as education and health care. He continued portraying the senator as a liberal who'll raise taxes and expand the role of the federal government if elected.
"On issue after issue, from Medicare without choices to schools without accountability to higher taxes, my opponent takes the side of more centralized control and more government," Bush said.