The Los Angeles Times reports that John Kerry is now attacking president Bush’s character. "After months of attacking President Bush’s policies, Sen. John F. Kerry is stepping up an assault on his rival’s character, challenging Bush’s credibility on everything from job creation to the war in Iraq.

Stopping just short of calling the president a liar, Kerry routinely accuses Bush of ’running up a truth deficit’ and compiling ’a long list of broken promises.’"

The New York Times reports: "Declaring that he is ’not a redistribution Democrat,’ Senator John Kerry told a group of wealthy and well-connected supporters on Thursday that he would soon start an aggressive campaign to define himself as a centrist, in hopes of peeling moderate Republicans from President Bush." The Washington Post reports: "Sen. John F. Kerry will begin using new images to introduce himself to voters with an intensified ad blitz in the next two weeks just as President Bush scales back his media offensive, campaign advisers said yesterday." Kerry says: "A lot of people don’t really know who I am. Their goal is to define me and make me unacceptable. . . . Our goal has to be to keep that acceptability." Thanks, John, all this is helpful. Also note Ryan Lizza’s short essay in The Atlantic on Kerry’s campaign guru, Bob Shrum. Shrum is a much overpraised Pupulist-Lefty who has his work cut out for him; he’ll retire a loser.