Incumbent factor: the other elephant in the room

July, it could be said, was John Kerry's month. Between anticipation over the veepstakes, interest in the new ticket, and coverage of the Democratic convention, the Massachusetts senator easily garnered positive headlines and dominated news cycles.

But August has been a different story. Kerry's "Believe in America" tour competed with distractions, such as a new terror alert, and presidential visits to the same towns on the same days. The Kerry campaign hoped to spend the past two weeks focusing on the economy, but the candidate wound up largely reacting to President Bush's thrusts on national security - from his challenge to Kerry to say whether he would vote the same way now on authorizing the Iraq war, to his initiative to bring back US troops from Europe and Asia.

Starting next week, Kerry's chances of commanding the spotlight will get even more remote, as attention shifts to New York and the launch of the Republican convention.

In some ways, this is part of the natural cycle of campaigns, with conventions highlighting first one candidate and then the other.

The effect has been somewhat exacerbated this year, because of the unusual amount of time between the two conventions, allowing each man to effectively dominate an entire month.

But Kerry is also bumping into the challenges of running against an incumbent - who can make news or insert himself into a story any time he chooses. In the aftermath of hurricane Charley, for example, Bush toured the wreckage in Florida, while Kerry sat on the sidelines.

For Bush, this headline-grabbing advantage will extend beyond the convention - while Kerry's next real chance to make a splash may be the debates.

"Any president has the ability to totally dictate the agenda of the race," says Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole's 1996 campaign against President Clinton. "[Bush] has dominated the issues that are being discussed, and caused Kerry and Edwards to react to headlines."

Democrats concede that, between news-dominating events like the hurricane and the Olympics, and the build up to the GOP convention, the past few weeks have been more challenging for Kerry.

Still, they argue that Bush's incumbency will ultimately prove more of a disadvantage than an advantage. While the president may have an easier time getting coverage, he also can't distance himself from negative events. Moreover, any race involving a sitting president tends to revolve around that president's record - which Democrats say is riddled with problems for Bush, on everything from the economy to Iraq.

"Ultimately, when you're the incumbent ... the race is about you," says David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist. "There are great advantages to incumbency, and we've seen some of them in the past few days. But there are also great disadvantages to incumbency when you have major failures on your hands."

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