Ken Mehlman, the campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, speaks to a full audience at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum last night.

Voters in November should re-elect President Bush because his “proactive” foreign policy is required in the post-Sept. 11 world, Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman told the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum yesterday.

Mehlman said that Bush recognizes that containment is “insufficient to protect America in a post 9/11 world as we’re facing international terrorism.”

Although Kerry has supported greater international and United Nations involvement in Iraq, Mehlman yesterday said that “multilateral means are a means, not an end.”

“Democracy and stability in Iraq is the end, and we will do whatever we have to to accomplish that end, but we’re not going to sacrifice the end for the means,” said Mehlman.

He said the election would feature a “huge debate on the most important issue a nation can face, which is how do you maintain and protect your peace.”

Harvard Republican Club president Mark T. Silvestri ’05 said the key part of Mehlman’s address was the foreign policy. “[The U.S.] needs to proactively connect the dots so we prevent another attack within this country, “ Silvestri said.

The 2004 election, Mehlman said, will hinge on the economy and foreign policy.

He accused Bush’s presumptive Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., of supporting economic policies that will make it “more expensive to hire workers” in the United States.

He said Bush supports tax cuts and deregulation and, in response to a question from Institute of Politics Director Daniel R. Glickman, said that Bush has plans to cut the U.S. deficit in half over the next five years.Mehlman was introduced by Matt Scogin, a masters in public policy student at the Kennedy School of Government who noted that Republicans are “sometimes vastly outnumbered” at Harvard.

Just after the introduction but before Mehlman began speaking, several members protested his appearance at the Forum by shouting and hanging a banner from the second level of the Forum.

Before guards escorted the protestors out of sthe Forum, they threw confetti from the balcony.

Glickman, who said the protest was unusual at the Forum, added that he didn’t think it was very effective.

“The irony is that protestors like this tend to hurt their cause,” Glickman said. “I think it actually helped [Mehlman].”

Mehlman said in the speech that in the 2004 election in particular, the way people get information will play a crucial role.

Mehlman said that candidates’ efforts at communicating their messages effectively will depend on their abilities “to have synergy” between different forms of media, such as print and the Internet.

“The wealth of information creates a poverty of attention,” he said.

In response to a question from Nicholas F.B. Smyth ’05—who was sporting a shirt supporting Kerry’s candidacy—on renouncing the use of “wedge” issues such as race and gay marriage, Mehlman said that he did not consider gay marriage a wedge issue but rather one of great importance to the American people.

Andy J. Frank ’05, the president of the Harvard College Democrats, said after the speech that he disagreed with Mehlman’s description of the gay marriage question.

“Gay marriage is a huge wedge issue and pretending that it is not an issue is simply not true,” Frank said.

But Scogin suggested that Bush should use the election as an opportunity to initiate a public discussion on gay marriage.

“I think part of the outrage with what happened in Massachusetts with the Supreme Court decision was that it occurred before a public dialogue could take place,” he said. “So with the campaign obviously Kerry and Bush have different views on gay marriage and I think the upcoming election will provide a good platform by which to debate those differences.”