In May 2004, a senior Bush Administration official was asked by the Wall Street Journal about the challenges facing John Kerry as he sought to address national security issues, and in particular the war in Iraq, in his campaign for the White House. "It's never stopped being 1968" for Democrats, the official said.
There was no need to spell out what "1968" meant. It was shorthand for the caricature of Democratic "weakness" and anti-military attitudes, dating from the party's opposition to the war in Vietnam, that has become the prism by which the Democrats are viewed on national security issues -- and by which the party often views itself. The challenge for Kerry wasn't Iraq; it was in battling this negative perception of Democrats as weak and indecisive on national security and foreign policy. As time would tell, it became one of the proximate causes of his defeat that November.
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