Senator Kerry doesn’t seem to be able to get himself under control and heed President Clinton’s advice, delivered by phone from a hospital bed, to focus on the economy and health care instead of Vietnam and national security. The senator promptly lifted a line from Governor Dean’s presidential campaign, going out on the campaign trail and calling the war in Iraq “the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Then Mr. Kerry waved a gun around and made a tasteless attempt at a joke: “I thank you for the gift, but I can’t take it to the debate with me.” The Bush daughters might have dropped a few lead balloons, but at least they steered clear of the genre of presidential assassination humor.

Maybe Mr. Kerry is resisting the Clinton suggestion because he realizes that the case to be made against Mr. Bush on the economy is not a particularly strong one. He can complain about a lack of job creation, but employment numbers issued last Friday by the Department of Labor showed the unemployment rate at 5.4%. That is the lowest since October 2001 and low by recent historical standards. And people are starting to understand that in an entrepreneurial, owner ship economy like that advanced by Mr. Bush, the traditional payroll job figures don’t always reflect the gains from self-employment and partnerships.

Mr. Kerry can complain about the deficit, but a report out yesterday from the Congressional Budget Office adjusted downward its predictions about the deficit. The CBO said the budget gap would be $55 billion smaller than its analysts had predicted only six months ago. As a percent of gross domestic product, the Bush deficit that the CBO predicts will be far smaller than Reagan’s Cold War deficits or Roosevelt’s World War II deficits. This kind of historical context, for which Mr. Bush has a mature and nuanced understanding, is coming into focus for millions of Americans as they grasp the fact that our country is in a new world war.

The angry Vietnam veteran can complain about overseas economic competition, as he did yesterday. “My value is good, old-fashioned four words: ‘Made in the USA,'” Mr. Kerry said, according to the Associated Press. But candidates seeking to hide behind protectionist, economic isolationist barricades – candidates like Patrick Buchanan in 2000, Rep. Richard Gephardt and Senator Edwards in the 2004 Democratic primaries – have lost time and again. Voters, many of whom drive imported cars, wear imported clothes, and watch imported televisions, want to know how America can flourish while integrated into the global economy, not how America can wall itself off from the world by consuming only products that are manufactured at home.

Mr. Kerry can complain about the stock market, but the market, cagey as ever, seems to rise every time the senator sinks in the polls. He can complain about rising health care costs, but his running mate, Mr. Edwards, made his fortune driving up those costs as a plaintiff’s lawyer suing doctors and hospitals. This is the context in which Mr. Kerry is waving a gun around and regretting how he won’t be able to bring it to the debate. It’s hard to see, between his record on the war and the issues cited above, how his macho-type posturing is going to help him any more than did his breast-beating on Vietnam.