BOSTON, Massachusetts, Aug 23 (AFP) - Attacks on Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry's Vietnam war exploits hurt him politically by drawing attention away from his strengths on key domestic issues, experts said Monday.
Poll after poll ahead of the November election has shown that voters prefer Kerry to US President George W. Bush on the economy, education, and the environment, and that Iraq could be a dangerous liability for the incumbent.
"Where he's beating Bush solidly is on the domestic issues: On health care, the environment, the economy. And Bush is having trouble with Iraq," said Eric Davis, a political scientist at Middlebury College in Vermont.
But the harsh advertisements by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have put the Democrat on the defensive over his decorated service in Vietnam while drowning out his efforts to capitalize on Bush's perceived weaknesses.
"He wants to be talking about Bush's failures on the economy, the environment, the mess abroad. The last thing he wants to be talking about right now is this," according to US politics expert Allan Lichtman.
Democratic Senator Jack Reed, a Kerry campaign ally, implictly acknowledged the problem in a conference call with reporters Monday, calling on Bush to denounce the ad and "get back to the issues important to the American people."
Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University in Washington, said that Kerry had "brought this on himself" by not focusing the Democratic National Convention in late July more on policy differences with Bush.
"All anyone remembers from the Democratic convention is that Kerry served in Vietnam. Because he put no policy pressure on Bush, he brought this on himself," said Lichtman.
The anti-Kerry ads, which are financed and run by prominent Bush backers, aim to convince voters that the senator from Massachusetts lied to get at least two of his five medals, three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star.
"They may not believe all of that, but that's what they're hearing instead of 'bad job numbers,' 'the environment is getting worse,' 'Americans are dying in Iraq,'" said Lichtman.
Polls show more than half of Americans have heard about the ads, which are being shown in just a few states, thanks to mainstream media coverage and the amplifying effect of conservative news outlets.
The effect is hard to gauge: A CBS news poll that found sharply eroded support for Kerry among veterans, but national surveys show that he and Bush are still running neck and neck ahead of the November 2 elections.
But Kerry is now expected to go silent while Bush enjoys the spotlight on his own nominating convention, which opens Monday in New York and is expected to build on the ads attacking the Democrat's record.
"This is only the first salvo of a Republican attack. The next two salvos are going to come next week, when the Republicans focus more on Kerry's anti-war activities and try to connect any protests at their convention in New York to the official Democratic Party," said Davis.
"The message will be 'Kerry is a radical leftist candidate who represents a radical leftist party, while Bush is a moderate patriot," he added.
Some Democrats aren't convinced that the ads are bad for their man at all, saying that any attack on his Vietnam war service highlights that Kerry served in combat while Bush did not.