LAS VEGAS — After months of struggling to find a theme to capture the essence of his candidacy, Sen. John F. Kerry has settled on one: The election, he says, boils down to a decision between four more years of "wrong choices" or a "new direction."
Since Labor Day, the Democratic presidential nominee has stuck to that theme relentlessly, using it to shape arguments on Iraq, the economy and nearly all other topics he broaches.
To some Democrats unnerved by President Bush's recent surge in the polls, Kerry's adoption of a clearly defined theme to draw contrasts with the Republican incumbent offers a measure of hope. The question for Kerry is whether this new approach to framing the election comes too late to matter.
"He's shifting the game plan in the fourth quarter here," said Joe Tuman, a San Francisco State University political communications professor. "It's coming very late, and that doesn't speak well for how they're managing their campaign." The thematic adjustment coincides with an expansion of Kerry's top circle of advisors. Amid widespread concern among Democrats that Kerry's candidacy has floundered, several former Clinton White House aides and other seasoned campaign operatives have joined his strategy team.
One of the most visible results is the change in rhetoric. Earlier attempts by the Massachusetts senator at clarifying his message -- among his slogans were "Let America Be America Again" and "Stronger at Home, Respected in the World" -- had little effect, analysts say.
"You had a lot of mush," said Tim Hibbitts, an independent Oregon pollster.
With the election a little more than six weeks away and debates looming as the last predictable milestone of the race, he added, "they don't have a lot more time to try out new themes."
Mike McCurry, former press secretary to President Clinton and now a senior Kerry advisor, said the "wrong choices, new direction" theme should "crystallize the choice" that voters face.
"A referendum on where people think the country is, they lose," McCurry said of the Bush campaign.
In his travels around the country, Kerry has applied his "wrong choices" theme to prescription drugs, civil rights, gun control, education, Halliburton defense contracts and stem-cell research.
"George Bush made the wrong choice," Kerry told a Las Vegas reporter who asked Thursday about the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump here in Nevada, which Bush has approved and Kerry opposes.
