The Telegraph: Democrat Gloom as Bush Soars into Lead

Deep gloom descended upon the ranks of Senator John Kerry's campaign yesterday as opinion polls provided further evidence of the success of the Republican convention last week and leading Democrats voiced dissatisfaction with his performance.

Today's Labour Day holiday traditionally marks the start of full-time campaigning for the November election but first the Kerry staff will be fending off intensifying criticism of their challenge to President George W Bush.

Two opinion polls confirmed that Mr Bush took a sizeable "bounce" out of the Republican convention in New York last week, with both showing him 11 points clear of Mr Kerry. One put Mr Bush on 54 points.

Past elections suggest that the candidate leading on Labour Day almost always goes on to win in November. So there was no disguising the scale of Mr Kerry's problems.

Worryingly for the Democrats, four days of fierce personal criticism from Republican speakers last week concentrating on Mr Kerry's lack of firm principle and his liberal Senate voting record have taken a heavy toll.

During August, when the Kerry campaign began to falter, Democrats kept their unease to themselves, but now they are speaking out.

Senator Christopher Dodd, a senior and influential Democrat, said Mr Kerry had "a very confused message in August and the Republicans had a very concise one". The party's elders are now regretting the decision to place Mr Kerry's Vietnam service at the heart of his convention appearance as it has invited the Republicans to concentrate on his character.

"Vietnam, in terms of John Kerry's service, was a good point to make but making it such a central point sort of invited the kind of response you've seen," Mr Dodd told the New York Times.

Rahm Emanuel, a White House political adviser during Bill Clinton's presidency and now a congressman, complained that the Kerry campaign had ceded the initiative to the Republicans.

"What they did is lose control of the ball. They allowed the election to not be about George Bush but to be about themselves. They've got to get back on their game."

All the polling evidence suggests that Mr Kerry and Mr Bush are equally trusted to deal with the economy but that the president is favoured by a huge margin to keep America safe from terrorist attack.

Thus, every time Mr Kerry strays into discussing the Iraq war, or even his own service in Vietnam, he is in effect fighting on Mr Bush's preferred territory.

To many Democrats, it is baffling that the Kerry campaign should have forgotten all the lessons learnt during Mr Clinton's two successful campaigns in 1992 and 1996.

Republicans now sense that Mr Kerry is highly vulnerable and will certainly keep up the assault in the weeks ahead.