You have that right. A politician with Clinton's charm, or Lieberman's moderate record could run long and far on Kerry's theme. The truth is there is uncertainty in this country, the recession, September 11, Iraq, etc., but Kerry isn't the right guy to capture the imagination and faith of voters. He has also completely over-played the Viet Nam card.
As an aside, I'm watching Bush's 2000 acceptance speech. The contrast to Kerry is amazing, Bush looked relaxed and mixed in humor and hope, he offered a sense of himself and a specific vision. Kerry failed on all of these counts.
You know,about all this Vietnam stuff . . . my sense of it is that the country has spent 30 years trying to put Vietnam behind it, and the spectre of its return does not make them feel good. It excites post-baby-boomers who marched in the streets at the time . . . but a lot of people are just turned off. To me, personally, it is emblematic of the Democrats' penchant for living in the past (i.e. high taxes, simplistic big government solutions, the welfare state, etc.). No new ideas. And they may profess idealism and patriotism, but in reality they don't want the "hate America first" mentality of the Vietnam era to be over.