How to run against Kerry

Andrew Sullivan thinks that the “liberal” attack is passé, and it’s much better to attack Kerry for being all over the map on any given issue: “Make him look weak and vacillating rather than extreme and liberal.”

Ah, the “Senator Splunge” strategy. I approve, but I would also throw in a heaping reminder of Kerry’s less-than-stellar legislative career. At every campaign stop, every speech, he’s always fighting fighting fighting for Americans…yet the fight stops short of introducing legislation to help. (You know, his job.) Even Kerry must realize his vulnerability on this issue since he tried to paper it over in last night’s South Carolina debate:

And one of the things that happens in Congress is, you can in fact write a bill, but if you're smart about it, you can get your bill passed on someone else's bill and it doesn't carry your name.

“If you’re smart about it”….like me! To which Mickey Kaus retorts:

Ah, so Kerry was a backroom legislative genius, he just kept all his achievements hidden! That's so like him!

This is a vulnerability for Kerry: when he says he “led the fight” for an issue, just what exactly does that mean? Had lunch with the bill’s sponsor? Made a speech on the Senate floor? Voted for an amendment? It’s all so unclear and therefore damaging to Kerry in a time when clarity is a highly-valued commodity.