Usually, candidates wait until they win the election before discarding their campaign promises as too costly to implement. But Senator Kerry yesterday proved himself an exception, essentially shelving two of his major domestic policy initiatives — universal pre-kindergarten and a national public service corps — as too expensive. We suppose it is nice of Mr. Kerry to inform the general American electorate of this before the November election. Not so lucky, however, are all of those in the Democratic Party who already voted for Mr. Kerry in primaries or caucuses based partly on the campaign promises that he is now promising he’ll break.

Campaigning in New Hampshire on November 21, 2003, to kick off his “Real Deal Express Bus Tour,” Mr. Kerry said that in the first 100 days of his administration, he’d create a national service program for 1 million participants that would “give Americans the chance to earn four years of college tuition in exchange for two years of service.” Yesterday, he basically said, that because of the budget deficit, he would have to slow that initiative down or phase it in “over a longer period.”That is Washington-talk for forget about it. “I don’t like that. But those are the hard calls a president has to make,” Mr. Kerry said yesterday. The “real deal,” indeed.

Mr. Kerry has been forced into this position by President Bush, who has been hammering him with negative campaign commercials that point out how much Mr. Kerry will raise taxes to pay for all his campaign promises. The senator was at pains yesterday to counter that accusation. “If you make less than $200,000, you’ll get a tax cut under my plan,” the man from Massachusetts said. “Let me be clear: Under my plan, 99% of American businesses and 98% of Americans will get a tax cut.” The results of a March 26 to 28, 2004, USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, however, found that 58% of Americans think their federal income taxes would go up if Mr. Kerry wins the election, while only 27% think their taxes would not go up if Mr. Kerry wins the election.

The real underlying issue here between Mr. Kerry and the voters isn’t taxes or spending or the deficit. It’s not that Americans haven’t heard his claim that he’d give a tax cut to 98% of us. It’s not the effect of the Bush campaign’s attack ads. The real problem for Mr. Kerry is that Americans don’t believe him. The Kerry campaign seems to be at least vaguely aware that this is a problem. The candidate’s text yesterday had the senator insisting “when I say a cap on spending, I mean it.” As opposed to when he says he promises a massive national service program in the first 100 days in his administration. Then, he didn’t “mean it.” We bow to no one in our enthusiasm on the tax issue. But we wouldn’t be surprised if many of the votes Mr. Bush wins in November are from those who are animated less by the issues of taxes or spending or the deficit than by the sense that Mr. Bush is more likely than Mr. Kerry to keep his word.