Liberal Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson warns that John Kerry and the DNC may be treading dangerous ground with the ever-popular Bush Bashing strategy:

The reality is there is a core on folks on the right who believe Bush is an appointed guardian of unilateral American might. There is a core of people on the left who believe Bush is still not their president. But if it was so obvious to Americans outside the elite east and the Bay Area that Bush was a scoundrel, then the polls should not be merely even - Kerry should be ahead by a landslide.

Further evidence of how the Kerry folks are relying heavily on the ABB (Anybody But Bush) game was the campaign's recent ''release'' of something called the ''Middle-Class Misery Index.'' By the time you get done reading it, you'd think we're in the second Great Depression.

The ''index'' smacked of the very elitism that sunk Al Gore against Bush in 2000. Even though it is a political statement, the Kerry people propped it up by using terms usually reserved for sober university studies such as ''Key Findings,'' and by calling itself a ''report'' and an ''analysis.''

Citing drops in family income, tax cuts, and the rising prices of health care, college tuition, and gasoline, Kerry says Bush has the ''Worst Record of Any President Ever.'' As Democrats are fond of saying, no president has watched so many jobs disappear (2.6 million) since Herbert Hoover. ''Today we are 7 million jobs short,'' the press release said.

The index had lots of numbers for what Bush has done wrong on jobs. But when the release says, ''John Kerry has a comprehensive agenda to restart job growth" there were no projections of how many jobs his plans would create.

Kerry complained that on Bush's watch, public university tuition, because of the fiscal crisis of the states, went up on average 13 percent. Kerry promises $50 billion of tax cuts for college. But there was nothing in this press release about how he would convince the colleges from raising the tuitions.

While criticisms of the current administration's failures in regard to economic policy are both necessary and apt, Jackson rightly notes that Kerry and his team have yet to present a true alternative. To truly mobilize more centrist voters, the Dems will have to not only continue to point out the flaws in Bush's economic plan, but to truly devise one of their own.

For on-the-fence Republicans such as myself, Bush's excessive spending, call for open borders, and Medicare reform represent an open betrayal of the party's core values. For many of us who voted Republican in 2000, this president has not turned out to be the man we thought he was. I would like nothing more than to cast my vote for a candidate other than George W. Bush this November.

However, for Kerry to present himself as a viable alternative to the incumbent, he must immediately begin to detail his plans for the country. Hatred of Bush will only go so far with Middle America, and not far at all with undecided conservatives. It is all too easy to merely criticize, and far more difficult to present a plan of one's own. Without clear direction, where is John Kerry going to lead us?