US economic success and flip-flop policies will see John Kerry falter

NO doubt the George W Bush re-election campaign has already checked out John Kerry’s middle initial. The F, they’ll have discovered, stands for Franklin. It’s not a deed-poll trick by the Democrat challenger to make himself the next JFK.

They will be surprised at that. Because there is very little Kerry wouldn't do or say to make himself electable. Like playing the Irish card.

Last year, as Kerry's campaign for the US Presidency got under way in his home state of Massachusetts, the candidate appeared at a labour union celebration. Behind him was a green backdrop, festooned with shamrocks and bearing his name in large letters: Jack Kerry.

According to The Boston Globe, one of his speeches drafted back in 1984 read: "As some of you may know, I am part-English and part-Irish. And when my Kerry ancestors first came over to Massachusetts from the old country to find work in the New World, it was my English ancestors who refused to hire them." In 1986, the phrase "those of us who are fortunate to share an Irish ancestry" found its way into one of his Senate scripts.

But Kerry is about as Irish as Gerhard Schroeder. His grandfather came from Central Europe in 1905 and changed from being Fritz Kohn to Franklin Kerry.

Yet for years, Massachusetts's Irish voters have assumed Fritz's grandson to be a true Son of Erin, much to the annoyance of real Irish-American politicians at election time. As the former Massachusetts Senate President William Bulger, commented drily: "Kerry's only Irish every six years."

To be fair to Kerry, his spokespeople deny he ever claimed to be Irish.

The 1984 and 1986 speeches are supposed to have been drafted by his staff and never actually spoken by him. But rumours of his Irishness have never been contradicted either. And the fact that at least two of his staff thought he was Irish suggests he was happy to keep it that way.

These little inconsistencies are not hanging offences. They are common enough in political life. But they seem to typify Kerry. Bush campaign ads are getting out the message that the middle F in his name stands for 'flip-flops' the policy U-turns which abound in the Democratic challenger's speeches and Senate votes.

Take the Iraq war for example. First Kerry supported it and then, to appease the liberals in the Democratic Party, opposed funding the reconstruction of Iraq. Or, as he put it himself last week: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

Bush recently joked at a fundraising event about the many 'diverse opinions' among the nine Democratic candidates who had been attacking him relentlessly since December. There were positions for tax cuts and against them, the President said. For the Patriot Act (investigation of terrorism), and against the Patriot Act. In favour of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. "And that's just one senator from Massachusetts," he added.

It's sticking. According to a poll conducted by New York Times/CBS News last week, 57% of voters think Kerry says what people want to hear, not what he believes. He has a 28% positive and 29% negative public image, which pollsters say is far short of what it should be at this stage. And Bush now leads by 46% to 38%, reversing an earlier lead held by Kerry after his triumphant march through the Democratic primaries.

The Kerry bandwagon has stopped rolling. Bush appears to have held his voting base, despite adverse publicity in the media. And the President has deep pockets. His advertising offensive has barely started yet.

Soon you will see Kerry portrayed as an Al Gore figure a Washington insider inclined to make extravagant claims, and lacking the common touch.

He has given many hostages to fortune. His claim to have the support of some foreign leaders resulted in a row when a Bush supporter challenged him to name them. Kerry told him it was none of his business. Last week, the candidate went on holidays but tumbled into a secret service bodyguard while out snowboarding. "The son of a bitch knocked me over," he complained. "I don't fall down." There's none of the Clinton charm here.

His ambition to be "America's second black President" (African-American writer Toni Morrison claimed Bill Clinton was the first) just doesn't sit with an elitist background and aggressive approach.

Cosmetic and superficial all this may be. But only 57% of American voters have an opinion of Kerry at this point which makes him ripe for definition by the opposition. One of the adjectives they will use is 'liberal' which, among other things, means support for high public spending. Already 39% of voters see him in this light and that is not an advantage.

KERRY'S Vietnam record is not all positive for him either. He denies being present at meeting of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in November 1971, at which group members discussed the possibility of assassinating US senators who supported the war. But this denial is contradicted by one of his own supporters, Gerald Nicosia, who has written Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement.

Can the Kerry campaign survive so many gaffes and inconsistencies? It all depends on whether Bush can get the US economy back on track and assuage American worries over Iraq. The bad news for Bush is that last week's survey found 38% of Americans thought things were headed in the right direction and 54% said things were on the wrong track. As you'd expect, incumbent presidents generally win elections when a majority of the voters think things are headed in the right direction.

Bush must therefore hope that plans to install an interim government in Iraq next June do not go awry. He can afford to be optimistic on this one.

The United Nations will oblige by mandating the allies' continued military presence in exchange for the main role in helping the transitional government organise elections and institutions of state. And this will prevent the embarrassing withdrawal of Spanish troops threatened by the new Spanish Prime Minister, Rodriguez Zapatero.

The economy could be trickier, however. It was the ground on which Bush Snr floundered, and time will tell whether the son suffers the same fate. There is some evidence that the US economy and its employment situation may be improving. A recent survey of US businesses shows that 28% of companies expect to hire in the second quarter and only 6% intend to cut jobs.

At the moment, it's neck-and-neck. Last week's poll showed that if liberal campaigner Ralph Nader is excluded, the margin narrows to 46-43. Nader supporters hate Bush more than anyone else. They may be persuaded to desert if to do otherwise would hand him a second term.

In the end, the Bush team will take comfort from Senator Edward Kennedy's remark that "American people are tired of the deceptions and misrepresentations." Ted was criticising the president. But by the time the campaign ads stop rolling, American voters will know that Kerry has plenty of deceptions and misrepresentations of his own.