O n September 30, 2004, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry met in Coral Gables, Florida, for the first debate of the presidential campaign. For months, the two had sparred about how to position America in a post–September 11 world, with Bush defending a preemptive, unilateralist policy and Kerry arguing for a greater reliance on the international community. Moderator Jim Lehrer asked Kerry and Bush whether the United States had the right to launch preemptive wars. Without hesitation, Kerry answered yes–with a qualifier. "But if and when you do it," he said, "You’ve got to do it in a way that passes the test, passes the global test where your countrymen, your people, understand fully why you’re doing what you’re doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons." After a moment, during which he seemed almost to be cocking his fist for a roundhouse punch, Bush answered, "My attitude is you take preemptive action in order to protect the American people, that you act in order to make this country secure " My opponent is for joining the International Criminal Court. I just think trying to be popular, kind of, in the global sense, if it’s not in our best interest, makes no sense."

Two days later, Bush deemed Kerry’s statement the "Kerry Doctrine." Speaking before a convention of home builders, he declared, "[Kerry] said that America has to pass a global test before we can use American troops to defend ourselves. . . . Senator Kerry's approach to foreign policy would give foreign governments veto power over our national security decisions." A president, he added, should not "take an international poll " our national security decisions will be made in the Oval Office, not in foreign capitals." In the weeks that followed, Kerry could not undo the damage. By Election Day, 86 percent of voters who cited "terrorism" as their top concern voted for Bush – a clear sign that Americans did not trust Kerry to keep them safe.

Kerry won the Democratic Party’s nomination as the candidate of national security strength. However, over the course of the general election campaign, he came to embody the broader failure of progressives to articulate a compelling foreign policy for a post–September 11 world. As Kerry’s loss demonstrated, progressives have not convinced the American people that they will do what it takes to defend the nation, that they have a clear direction for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy in a world of terrorist threats, and that they have core affirmative beliefs, rather than ...