WASHINGTON -- Why is John Kerry running such a bad campaign?

One big mistake is that he doesn't concede he is running a bad campaign. He complains he had a "bad month" in August because he had a "money" disadvantage. His solution is to shuffle staff members.

		Ann McFeatters is National Bureau chief for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (amcfeatters@ nationalpress.com, 1-202-662-7071).

But money and staff are not the Democratic presidential nominee's big problems. He is running a bad campaign because it has no firm focus. People are having trouble wrapping themselves around his candidacy because they don't know what he'd do or what kind of president he would be. We know Kerry has contempt for President Bush; we know Bush ridicules Kerry. But Kerry's rationale that he should be elected because he's not Bush won't work.

For starters, Kerry needs a pithy message that voters can remember, a slogan that reminds people who he is, what he'd do and why they should like him. They have to be able to crystallize in their minds what a presidential candidate is about. Kerry has failed to do that. One day he'd keep the troops in Iraq. The next day, he'd get them out. One day he'd give health insurance to everyone. The next day he'd give everyone a job that pays at least $7 an hour. Whoopee.

Another major mistake the senator from Massachusetts made was to let Bush make the election about Kerry's fitness for office, when he should have made Nov. 2 a referendum on Bush. For the month of August, Kerry let Bush and his surrogates pound away at his character and let the Swift boat controversy pick at the undecided voters.

The attacks on Kerry's service in Vietnam, valor and fitness for command are reminiscent of the attacks on Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988, when the face of murderer Willie Horton morphed into Dukakis' image in TV ads. Dukakis failed to respond quickly and effectively. Kerry -- who, ironically, was Dukakis' lieutenant governor -- failed to respond quickly and effectively to the discredited Swift boat veterans' attacks.

And an outrageous statement by Vice President Cheney -- that another terrorist attack would be likely if Kerry, a sitting senator who served honorably in the military, gets elected president-- hung out there too long before the Kerry people raged about its unfairness. When Cheney and Bush challenged Kerry to talk about his Senate record, Kerry ignored them.

Kerry never has countered satisfactorily the "Senator Flip-flop" charge that Bush levels at him day after day. Kerry, more aptly "Senator Nuance," failed to explain that any legislator with 20 years on the job has voted on many sides of many issues for many reasons -- extraneous amendments, irresponsible spending, compromises and tradeoffs essential to passing legislation. Kerry failed to shoot down the "flip-flopping" charge when he had the chance (it arose during the messy Democratic primary season), and now it sticks to him.

Additionally, Kerry has failed to stress how Bush, who supported the Vietnam War but stayed out of it, has "flip-flopped" himself for four years on dozens of issues -- nation-building; spending; unkept veto threats; opposing the 9/11 commission and its recommendations, then reluctantly accepting them; his reasons for war. While Republicans painted Bush as a man of principle and resolve -- "comfortable in his own skin" -- Democrats did nothing to knock down the implication that Kerry is not principled, resolute and confident.

Everything that the Democrats did at their convention in Boston was met with a crescendo of criticism from Republicans, who had a squad in Beantown waging an offensive every day. Nothing the Republicans did at their New York gathering was answered effectively by Democrats. When Sen. Zell Miller, a Georgia Democrat, blasted Kerry in a maniacal GOP convention keynote address, Democrats shrugged their shoulders and said, "Oh, that's crazy ol' Zell. It'll backfire on Bush." But it didn't.

Bush and his cohorts repeatedly call Kerry the "most liberal senator." Asked if that is true, Kerry said, "No." And that was that.

Leading black Democrats are complaining that the party is failing to register African-Americans in large numbers, which is key to turnout and could be Kerry's best hope. They say Kerry is pouring money into ads but not into ground organization -- storefront campaign offices, voter-registration drives, door-to-door canvassing. Southerners hiss that the Kerry campaign has written off their region.

Ralph Nader complains that his overtures to help Kerry were rebuffed and that Kerry turned him into an enemy. That may be groundless, and Nader won't hurt Kerry as badly as he hurt Al Gore in 2000. But he could get enough votes in potentially close states to damage Kerry.

Bush's strength is his nice-guy-above-the-fray image, which Kerry has left unchallenged. Kerry has an image as an elite, slightly arrogant loner, which he has done little to change. He lets himself be photographed skiing, water-skiing, cycling and, now, wind-surfing.

Kerry's biggest mistake may be in underestimating Bush, his fierce adherence to total discipline and his determination to win a second term, which his super-achiever father did not have.