Yesterday, DR argued that John Kerry has emerged as the Democratic frontrunner and very plausible general election candidate because he has threshhold credibility with voters in three key areas: as commander-in-chief and defender of national security; as steward of the economy and custodian of the domestic agenda; and through his campaigning and ability to connect with voters.

But Kerry will need much more than threshhold credibility to beat George Bush. In this regard, Kerry's revival of warmed-over Gore-style populism is problematic. Kerry has been putting this populism front-and-center in his recent campaign speeches, including his victory speech Tuesday night in New Hampshire.

I have a message for the influence peddlers, for the polluters, the HMOs, the drug companies, big oil and all the special interests who now call the White House home: We're coming. You're going. And don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Now, there's a lot to be said for such a theme. As with Bill Clinton in 1992, it is probably an effective way to consolidate the support he needs to get the nomination. And it can and should be an important part of the case to be made against George Bush in the general election campaign. Polls consistently show that Bush and his administration are viewed as being on the side of the wealthy and big corporations, not the average American. It would be political malpractice on Kerry's part not to emphasize this.

But that emphasis shows more what you're against than where you want to take the country, especially with "the people vs. the powerful" rhetoric that he has been using. (Kerry would do well to borrow some of Edwards' more optimistic approach as well as Edwards' whole frame that Bush's tax and other policies are a radical shift toward rewarding wealth instead of work.) To succeed, Kerry needs to get beyond populist critique to a positive, compelling vision of where he want to take the country. Here are some ideas.

Start with the economy. Criticizing its shortcomings is fine and, even with the pickup in growth, there’s still likely to be plenty to find fault with in 2004. In all likelihood, the Bush administration will wind up presiding over a net loss of jobs–particularly manufacturing jobs--which is quite extraordinary by historical standards (not since the disastrous administration of Herbert Hoover, to be precise). But, compared with the situation in 1992, both the unemployment rate and the level of economic pessimism are likely to be lower than those which helped doom his father’s re-election chances.

Therefore, even more so than Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992, Kerry's campaign has to be about the future of the economy and the country in general–a future that Republican policies have seriously compromised. As pollster Stanley Greenberg argues in his new book, The Two Americas, the future that would resonate most with American voters is an opportunity society of the type envisioned by the Democrats of John F. Kennedy’s era. Such a society would give everyone access to the resources and education to get ahead and is radically counterposed to where Bush is taking the country.

Take the Bush tax cuts. The public has never been particularly enthusiastic about them, seeing them as only modestly helpful to the average person and the economy as a whole, if helpful at all. They are well aware most of the benefits flow to the well-off and outright rich. Evidence is strong that they would prefer seeing the money devoted to subsidizing the affluent used for public purposes in specific areas.

One area that immediately presents itself, especially given its clear connection to an opportunity society, is education. The Republicans’ program in this area is simple: high standards through the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, while presiding over a stagnant federal education budget and dramatic education cutbacks in fiscally-crunched states. That formula means states don’t have the money to help the many failing schools designated by NCLB, much less improve and modernize their school systems for the 21st century.

The public is well-aware of this problem. Provided Kerry maintains the NCLB's basic commitment to high standards and stringent accountability ("mend it, don't end it"), he will find a receptive audience for proposals to give schools the resources they need to both meet current shortfalls and modernize for the future. Modernization could include universal access to pre-school, keeping school buildings open all-day and year-round for educational enrichment and/or ensuring that every student can continue their education beyond high school. This, in turn, would mean substantial changes in the ways schools operate, recruit teachers and provide services. A modernization program on this scale will go far toward branding Kerry's campaign as a campaign for the future.

The same focus on the future should inform his programs in other areas. In health care, while he will have a fat target in the recently-passed Medicare prescription drugs bill, he should resist the temptation to focus on the notorious skimpiness of the drug benefit. The worst crime of the bill is it does nothing to rein in runaway drug costs (indeed, that’s the main reason the bill manages to spend a fair amount of money–$400 billion over ten years–yet achieve so little), whose escalating prices terrify the senior citizens who consume them. Similarly, the goal of extending coverage is a worthy one, but the typical voter already has health insurance and is most worried about the degrading quality and increasing costs (both premiums and out-of-pocket) of the policy they have. Modernizing the health care system in this country means, first and foremost, finding ways to bring and keep health care costs under control. That, in turn, would help lay the basis for a model of universal coverage that would be fiscally and politically sustainable, rather than simply adding another expensive entitlement to the current system.

Or take Social Security. The Republican plan to partially privatize the system by “carving out” a portion of the FICA tax to be put into individual investment accounts is a bad one and support for it is quite soft, once the inevitable reduction in guaranteed benefits is brought to voters’ attention. But a defense of the Social Security system, while reasonable in and of itself, does nothing to modernize a pension system that leaves some workers without retirement accounts at all and others with multiple and underfunded accounts.

The most straightforward way to do this is to set up a universal pension system that would provide every worker with a fully portable retirement account. Under such a system, all the various IRA and related accounts would be rolled into one tax-favored account and workers could direct cash from any and all their 401(k) accounts into this universal account, which would remain with them as they moved from job to job. As former Clinton economic advisor Gene Sperling advocates, these accounts could be further supported by providing up to $1,000 a year in matching contributions for savings deducted from paychecks–a one-to-one match for middle-income workers and a two-to-one match for lower-income workers.

Another issue Kerry should focus on is the environment and the need to safeguard it for future generations. This is an issue with strong appeal to key Democratic-leaning groups like professionals and the young. But it’s also an issue that gets a lot of moderate suburban swing voters hot under the collar. Polling consistently shows that voters think Bush has been doing a terrible job on the environment, trust the Democrats on the issue by wide margins and vote heavily Democratic if it’s an important voting issue to them. The Gore campaign de-emphasized the issue in 2000, on the grounds that it wasn’t a salient issue to enough voters. Kerry shouldn’t make the same mistake. The more he talks about it, the more salient the issue will become; the more salient it becomes, the better off his campaign will be.

Across all these issues, Kerry should highlight how his program for America’s future connects to a vision of an opportunity society where every American is provided with the tools they need to succeed, from adequate education to a reasonable level of health security to an effective way to save for their retirement. Opportunity for all Americans, not just the few with the most money and connections to Washington, is a fundamental American value and that value should lie at the heart of Kerry's campaign.

DR can't promise this approach will beat George Bush. But it's got more potential to do so than "the people vs. the powerful". Or (shudder) "the real deal".