THE VETS ATTACK

Carville was working himself up to a confrontation. On the Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend, with the Republicans basking in the success of their convention, he decided to try to force the issue. Along with Clinton's old pollster Stan Greenberg, Carville went to see Mary Beth Cahill and Joe Lockhart at the Kerry campaign headquarters on 15th Street. Greenberg was soft-spoken and generally supportive of the Kerry team, though he did offer a critique demonstrating that Kerry's speeches sounded about five different themes without any organizing principle. Carville, however, was so worked up that he began to cry. He wanted so badly to beat Bush, he said, yet the Kerry campaign was failing miserably. Carville came right out and said that Cahill had to step aside and let Lockhart, the Clintonista newcomer, run the campaign. "You've got to let him do it!" implored Carville, pounding Lockhart's arm until it was bruised. Carville spoke as if Mary Beth weren't in the room. "Nobody can gain power without someone losing power. If somebody doesn't lose power, nobody's gained power," he lectured. The "somebody" sitting a few feet away just remained silent. Carville threatened to go on "Meet the Press" the next day "and tell the truth about how bad it is" if Cahill didn't give effective control to Lockhart.

Cahill and all the others later dressed up the truth--it had been her idea, they said, to bring in Lockhart and other old Clinton aides to strengthen the campaign. But, in fact, the campaign had undergone a silent coup. Kerry's hand was hidden, but he had given his silent assent.

The most prominent Clintonista also weighed in that Saturday, Sept. 4. Former president Clinton was resting in a hospital bed in New York City, awaiting a heart-bypass operation. But he couldn't resist injecting himself into the Kerry campaign crisis. For 90 minutes that night, as various campaign aides listened in on a conference call, the ex-president lectured the would-be president on what he had to do to get back in the race. Clinton urged Kerry to spend less time talking about Vietnam and more time engaging on Iraq. This was not the first time Clinton had weighed in. Some of the suggestions were a little over the top, the Kerry aides thought. In an earlier phone call, Clinton--ever the political triangulator, looking for ways to pick up swing voters by reaching into the so-called Red States--had urged Kerry to back local bans on gay marriage. Kerry respectfully listened, then told his aides, "I'm not going to ever do that."

On Monday morning, less than 36 hours later, Kerry read a none-too-flattering account of his phone call with Clinton on the front page of The New York Times. The article made both Clinton and Kerry look a little desperate, engaged in a sickbed seance over Kerry's political survival. The imagery was demoralizing: if Kerry was so hapless at running his own campaign, voters were going to start wondering how well he would run the White House. Kerry was furious and chewed out Lockhart, whom he suspected to be the source. Not true, insisted Lockhart, still new on the job but already on the verge of quitting (others suspected Carville of the leak). Kerry was beleaguered. He was wary of the agenda of the Clinton exiles: if he lost in November, the way would be open for Hillary Clinton to run for president in 2008.

Kerry's small circle felt surrounded, besieged, cut off. The campaign had made much of contesting more than 20 swing states. But one of those battleground states, Missouri, already seemed lost. On Sept. 9 Alex Kerry traveled there with her father. At a Kerry rally she decided to try to find out what "real people" thought by asking a few of them. A group of Democratic voters didn't recognize her. Encouraged by her anonymity, she crossed the street to talk to some Republican protesters. "We know who you are," one of them spat out. Others began shouting that her father was a "baby killer." Shocked by their vehemence, she went to find her father, who quickly saw how upset his daughter had become. He cleared the room of aides. Alex dissolved in tears. "What if they steal the election?" she cried. "We're not going to let that happen," Kerry tried to reassure her. Alex was feeling more and more isolated. Her friends tried to console her, telling her, "Everything will be all right." But she didn't believe them.

Kerry's top consultants weren't having a much better time of it. Tad Devine trooped up to Capitol Hill the week after Labor Day to hear the complaints of Democratic congressmen, who were fearful that the whole party would suffer in November, that any hope of regaining control of the House was fast disappearing. As Devine tried to buck them up, he noticed that congressmen were getting up and walking out. He heard bells ringing, and assumed, or rather hoped, that they were leaving to go vote on the House floor. They weren't. They were just showing their contempt for the Kerry campaign.