Bush scorn can't dent slick Kerry - Foreign leaders support Kerry to beat Bush.
By Roy Eccleston, Washington correspondent
March 10, 2004
RIDICULE is the early weapon of choice for Republicans trying to cripple Democrat presidential contender John Kerry's campaign to win the White House in November.
There are digs about his years at European boarding schools, shots at his pricey haircuts and jokes from US President George W. Bush about his reputation for simultaneously opposing and supporting difficult policies.
The first television attack advertisement by a conservative group targeted Senator Kerry's wealth - he is married to Teresa Heinz, whose estimated $US500 million ($660 million) fortune came from her late husband's food company.
"Hairstyle by Christophe $US75," begins the ad, a parody of the well-known Mastercard commercials.
"Designer shirts: $US250. Forty-two-foot luxury yacht: $US1 million. Four lavish mansions and beachfront estate: over $US30 million.
"Another rich liberal elitist from Massachusetts who claims he's a man of the people," the ad says, over pictures of Senator Kerry with fellow eastern liberal senator Edward Kennedy, before concluding: "Priceless."
The ad, paid for by conservative group Citizens United, went to air as a leading opinion poll showed Senator Kerry, 60, would win an election held now, gaining 52 per cent of the vote to Mr Bush's 44 per cent.
Mr Bush adopted a mocking tone towards his challenger in a speech at a fundraising lunch yesterday in Dallas, Texas. He reeled off a list of issues including the North American Free Trade Agreement, the anti-terrorism Patriot Act, the war on Iraq and child wefare policy.
"Senator Kerry voted for the Patriot Act, for NAFTA, for the No Child Left Behind Act, and for the use of force in Iraq," he said.
"Now he opposes the Patriot Act, NAFTA, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the liberation of Iraq. My opponent clearly has strong beliefs - they just don't last very long."
Republican leader Tom DeLay last week questioned Senator Kerry's arithmetic, and suggested he had not been taught well at the European boarding schools he attended while his father was a US diplomat.
Senator Kerry hit back by revealing that foreign leaders had told him Mr Bush's presidency had so damaged the world they hoped he would lose office.
"I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but boy, they look at you and say you gotta beat this guy, we need a new policy, things like that," CNN quoted Senator Kerry as telling reporters off-camera.
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