Quotes of the Day

It's the middle of a three-day bus tour through Ohio, West Virginia Pennsylvania and Michigan, four states that have been among the most hurt by the loss of manufacturing jobs over the last several years, and John Kerry wants to talk about economic pain. On his "Jobs First" bus traveling from Youngstown to Cleveland Tuesday, Kerry talked to two unemployed workers, asking them questions like "are you sort of downsizing your dreams, your visions?” and "that’s pretty tough, that really hurts, doesn’t it?" Once he arrives in Cleveland, a group of Democratic mayors sit on a stage with Kerry and detail how much their cities have suffered since President Bush took office.

Kerry encourages people to march and get active in protest, as he did as young man, to change the American leadership. On his jobs tour and throughout his campaign, Kerry constantly invokes the idealism of the 1960's that inspired him to enter politics, quoting often from the Kennedys: John, Robert, and his supporter-in-chief, fellow Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. That idealism, he says, helped solve American problems like racial segregation. He remembers visiting the segregated South in the 1960's and wondering, "This is my country? This is happening here? . .. . We have come a long way, we have people who live close together, we have people who work together," Kerry says.

Still, his message is long on what's wrong in America but short on what he'd do about it. As part of a 20-city fundraising tour over the last month, Kerry gives short speeches to campaign donors who show up for the fundraisers, often after giving $1,000 or more to the campaign. In forums like this, when his message has to be distilled into a few short bites, it's basically a long lament that President Bush, through tax cuts and poor stewardship of the economy, has caused college tuition, property tax, and health care costs to soar while wages go down.

Kerry has some innovative policy ideas, including his health care plan, which calls for the government to give money to patients with extremely high health care expenses to reduce the overall costs of health insurance for businesses. And he's talking about offering a corporate tax cut and a manufacturing jobs tax credit to keep companies from outsourcing jobs abroad. But on the stump Kerry struggles to explain these proposals, falling back on jargon like "catastrophic cases" to explain his health care plan that leaves people confused.

What Kerry's saying may not matter. Americans are so polarized in their views of President Bush that the election may be just a referendum on the wisdom of his tax cuts and the war in the Iraq. But if Kerry wants to win voters in the middle like those in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, he'll need to improve in how he offers his alternative, positive vision.

• Perry Bacon Jr
• Email from the Trail: While the GOP tries to hit him on defense, the candidate wants to talk jobs