He did it again this week when he left the campaign trail on the eve of Super Tuesday to return to Washington and vote on a controversial piece of gun legislation. The Democrats’ 2000 nominee, Al Gore, avoided gun issues for fear of alienating rural Southern voters. But Kerry was forthright. He came to the Senate floor and spoke forthrightly in support of amendments to extend the assault-weapons ban and close the gun-show loophole eliminating the waiting period to purchase a weapon.

Republicans had boasted ahead of time how they were setting “bear traps” for Kerry that would force him to cast difficult votes. But the scheme backfired. At issue was legislation pushed by the National Rifle Association to exempt gun manufacturers from lawsuits. Kerry opposed the bill, but voted in favor of the two gun-control amendments.

Ultimately, the NRA’s refusal to accept the amended bill led to its defeat, forcing the Republican leadership into full retreat. It was a classic case of unintended consequences for the GOP. They had hoped to put Democrat Tom Daschle in an uncomfortable position by making him choose between his pro-gun South Dakota constituents and the dictates of his leadership position. Word was that Daschle, who is in a tight race for re-election, would side with the gun manufacturers, a vote that was prompting calls from Democratic interest groups for his resignation as Senate leader.

Daschle came out fine because Democrats and Republicans voted against the bill on instruction from the NRA. The end result was an unholy alliance between Democrats who refused to relinquish the ability to sue gun manufacturers and the NRA, which refused to accept the gun-control amendments.

The good news is that Kerry spoke his mind without equivocation. The bad news is that unlike Gore, Kerry isn’t competing for any Southern states. He doesn’t have to slow dance for Dixie. The South is gone, which means Kerry has to carry both coasts plus the battleground industrial states and the Western swing states of New Mexico and Arizona. There’s no margin for error.

Kerry passes the threshold test in that voters can conceive of him as president. As the late-night comics say, he not only looks like he belongs on Mount Rushmore, he looks like he was carved from Mount Rushmore.

But the last two Democrats elected, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, were centrists. Each displayed daring and imagination in bucking their party’s orthodoxy. Carter was a born-again Christian who promised, “I will never lie to you.” Clinton campaigned as a different kind of Democrat, even cutting short his campaigning in ‘92 to return to Arkansas and preside over the execution of a mentally retarded inmate whose last wish was to have his dessert saved for later. Liberals were embarrassed by Carter’s unabashed religiosity, and they cringed at Clinton’s political crassness, but they got the White House.

Kerry’s opposition to the death penalty returns the party to its roots, but at what cost? Kerry makes an exception for terrorists, but struggled to explain to John Edwards, who supports the death penalty, why it was morally defensible to execute a terrorist while keeping alive someone who had tortured and killed a child. “He’s burdened by complexity,” observes a GOP strategist in sarcastic tones.

Kerry showed tremendous courage 35 years ago in Vietnam, but as a politician, he’s never daring until it’s almost too late. He came close to losing his Senate seat in 1996, until a series of debates against rival Bill Weld gave him the forum to recover. Two months ago, Kerry was ranked as low as the Rev. Al Sharpton in national polls. The senator retrieved his presidential bid from the dustbin of history. His challenge now is to keep a sense of momentum as he assumes the role of a shadow president.

In a society addicted to the next new thing, Kerry can’t win by being safe. He needs to find opportunities to capture the public imagination. The choice of a running mate will tell us something about how he makes decisions, and what he perceives as his weaknesses. His commanding wins in the primaries, winning all but three states, makes him president of the Democrats. The party is unified, but Kerry needs to also appeal to Republicans and Independents. The night he won the nomination, when he had the country’s attention, was a good time to reach out to all Americans. Instead, the story was George W. Bush’s unusual call to Kerry congratulating him on his primary victories. Kerry may have spent more time in Washington, but the president certainly has learned a thing or two about spin.