In Boston, a Ringing Call for Change
Tue Jul 27, 6:52 AM ET
story.news.yahoo.com
By Dan Balz, Washington Post Staff Writer
BOSTON, July 26 -- Led by former President Bill Clinton, the Democratic National Convention opened here Monday night
with a tough and sustained critique of President Bush's policies and a partisan rallying cry to delegates to convert their
bitterness over the disputed 2000 election into fresh energy aimed at
electing John F. Kerry in November.
To a chorus of cheers and sustained
applause, Clinton called the 2004 election a
stark choice between two major political
parties with deeply held and fundamentally
different views of how to meet challenges at
home and abroad.
"We Democrats want to build a world and
an America of shared responsibilities and
shared opportunities . . . where we act alone
only when we have to," he said.
Republicans, Clinton added, "believe in an
America run by the right people -- their
people -- in a world in which America acts
unilaterally when we can and cooperates
when we have to."
Clinton staunchly defended the
Massachusetts senator, saying that when
young men such as himself, Bush and Vice
President Cheney found ways to avoid going
to Vietnam, Kerry volunteered for service
there. And he mocked Bush and the GOP
for suggesting that Kerry and his running
mate, Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), would be soft on terrorism.
"Strength and wisdom are not conflicting
values," he said. "They go hand in hand."
With Kerry and Edwards campaigning their
way to Boston through battleground states,
the opening-night program also featured
former president Jimmy Carter, former vice
president Al Gore and
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.). The Democratic luminaries
sent a jolt of energy through Boston's
FleetCenter that got the convention off on the high note that organizers
had hoped for.
Gore opened his speech with humor about his fate in the 2000 election
and then issued an appeal to both those who backed Bush four years
ago and those who supported third-party candidate Ralph Nader (news -
web sites), urging them to reconsider what their actions had meant for
the country.
"I want to say to all Americans this evening that whether it is the threat
to the global environment or the erosion of America's leadership in the
world, whether it is the challenge to our economy from new competitors
or the challenge to our security from new enemies, I believe we need
new leadership that is both strong and wise," Gore said.
Carter was even more pointed in his critique of Bush's record. "The
United States has alienated its allies, dismayed its friends and
inadvertently gratified its enemies by proclaiming a confused and
disturbing strategy of preemptive war," he said. "With our allies
disunited, the world resenting us and the Middle East ablaze, we need
John Kerry to restore life to the global war against
terrorism."
Despite claims by Kerry campaign officials and Democratic Party
leaders that this convention would accentuate the positive, the first
night's speeches echoed the same criticisms of Bush that Kerry,
Edwards and other candidates for the Democratic nomination have
sounded throughout the campaign.
But with Kerry in an extremely tight contest with Bush and seeking to
use the four-day gathering to flesh out his political profile and convince
voters that he is fit to serve as commander in chief in a time of terrorism,
Monday's speakers also sought to highlight what they described as
Kerry's courage and fitness to lead and said he would provide a needed
contrast to the leadership style of the incumbent president.
"He will lead the world, not alienate it," Hillary Clinton
said. "Lower the deficit, not raise it. Create good jobs, not lose them.
Solve a health care crisis, not ignore it."
The 44th Democratic convention marked the first major party convention
since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the extraordinary
security around FleetCenter and throughout this historic city offered a
reminder to the dramatically altered landscape on which the 2004
election is being fought.
That changed climate has put new burdens on the Democratic
challenger to demonstrate his national security credentials and, Kerry
advisers said, much of the work of this convention will be aimed at giving
voters confidence in his leadership. "The major thing we're trying to
achieve is for people to see him . . . as someone who is ready to lead
this nation," Mary Beth Cahill, Kerry's campaign manager, told reporters
at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
Democrats have the luxury of focusing almost exclusively Kerry and his
credentials this week because of the extraordinary unity within the party.
In contrast with past conventions, many of them wracked by major
disputes and minor wrangling, the delegates have set aside whatever
differences they have behind a wall of unity in their desire to defeat Bush.
One more sign of that goal to set aside differences came Monday
afternoon, when former Vermont governor Howard Dean (news - web
sites), who shaped the Democratic race through much of 2003 only to
see Kerry overtake him in the Iowa caucuses, released his delegates in
a symbolic gesture of solidarity and urged them to support Kerry and
Edwards when the roll is called on Wednesday night.
Clinton produced the evening's highlight reel, with an oratorical flourish
designed to remind voters of the prosperity his eight years in office
brought to the country and to argue forcefully that it was Democratic
policies that had produced those conditions.
Bush, he said, squandered "an amazing opportunity to bring the country
together under his slogan of compassionate conservatism and to unite
the world in the struggle against terror" in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
Instead, he said, the president and his congressional allies chose to
"push the country too far to the right and to walk away from our allies."
Clinton said Republicans supported tax cuts for
wealthy Americans such as himself while cutting
funding for programs aimed at helping children and
working families with child care, job retraining and
after-school assistance.
"If you agree with all that, by all means, reelect them,"
he said. "If not, John Kerry and John Edwards are your
team for the future."
Clinton's speech, which concluded just as the networks
were ending their prime-time broadcasts, was
interrupted by several standing ovations and by
frequent shouts of "You tell him, Bill!" from people in
the hall. He was greeted by delegates waving
Kerry-Edwards signs reading "America's Future."
"I can sum up my reaction in one word: phenomenal,"
said Jay Augustine, a delegate from Louisiana. "I
thought he hit the nail right on the head with the
positions that our country should be moving toward.
You could not ask for a sharper contrast between what
Democrats stand for and what the party in power
believes in."
Gore was the first of the major speakers Monday night
and he began on a humorous note with a reference to
his bitter defeat in 2000, when he won the popular vote
but lost the presidency after a 36-day recount in
Florida that ended with a Supreme Court decision that
tipped the Electoral College ( vote to
Bush.
"I know from my own experience," he said, "that
America is a land of opportunity where every little boy
and girl has a chance to grow up and win the popular
vote."
Gore was a sentimental and popular favorite among the
thousands of delegates. People in the massive hall rose
to their feet well before New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson had finished his introduction. The roar for
Gore was so loud that his name could barely be heard
from the floor by the time Richardson finished.
Gore argued that Bush abandoned his pledges to unify
the country and pursue compassionate conservatism.
Instead, he said, Bush has weakened environmental
protections, brought about the erosion of civil liberties
and turned record projected surpluses into record
deficits. "Let's make sure that the Supreme Court does
not pick the next president," he said, "and that this
president is not the one who picks the next Supreme
Court."
The former vice president saved his strongest words for
Bush's conduct of foreign policy, an area he has spoken
about repeatedly in the past two years, beginning with
a speech in 2002 urging Congress not to give Bush the
power to go to war with Iraq unilaterally. Gore said Bush diverted critical resources
from the battle to defeat Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network to lead the United States into
Iraq.
"Wouldn't we be better off with a new president who
hasn't burned his bridges to our allies and who could
rebuild respect for America in the world?" he asked.
Gore, who spoke before the major networks began their
coverage, said Kerry, with whom he came to the
Senate in 1985, demonstrated the same kind of
courage on the floor of the Senate that he had shown
in combat in Vietnam. "He never shied away from a
fight, no matter how powerful the foe," Gore said.
In closing, Gore exhorted the delegates not to forget
2000. "To those of you who felt disappointed or angry
with the outcome in 2000, I want you to remember all
those feelings," he said. "But I want you to do with
them what I have done: focus them fully and
completely on putting John Kerry and John Edwards in
the White House in 2004 so we can have a new
direction in America."
"He really put the purpose of the convention in the
proper perspective," said Ramon Garcia, a delegate
from Edinburg, Tex. "He told us where we've been,
where we are and where we're going."
Carter said Kerry knows the horrors of war and said
the Massachusetts senator, far more than Bush, would
safeguard the country against terrorism. "Truth is the
foundation of our global leadership, but our credibility
has been shattered and we are left increasingly
isolated and vulnerable in a hostile world," he said.
He described the choice for voters starkly. "Ultimately
the issue is whether America will provide global
leadership that springs from the unity and integrity of
the American people or whether extremist doctrines
and the manipulation of truth will define America's role
in the world."
Between the main speeches, the convention featured
video feeds from around the country with Americans
offering short speeches of support for Kerry and
Edwards.
The convention was gaveled into session promptly at 4
p.m. by Democratic National Committee (news - web
sites) Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe. Earlier in the
day, Cahill and strategist Tad Devine offered an upbeat
appraisal of the Democrats' chances of taking back the
White House in November. Devine painted an expansive
portrait of the electoral map for the fall campaign,
saying that the Kerry team made a strategic decision
in the spring not to concentrate most of its resources
in a few critical battleground states, such as Ohio, and
instead attempt to enlarge the playing field to states
Bush won and that have been trending Republican.
From the opening ceremonies through Thursday's
acceptance speech, Kerry's Vietnam War experience
will form one of the major subtexts of convention week
and, Kerry advisers believe, constitutes one of Kerry's
major assets as a candidate.
Democrats staged the first of what will be a series of
veterans' events, this one featuring Kerry's Swift boat
crew members from Vietnam as well as retired Army
Gen. Wesley K. Clark and former senator Max Cleland
(Ga.), who lost three limbs in Vietnam and has
campaigned tirelessly for Kerry all year.
Staff writer Paul Farhi and researcher Lucy Shackelford
contributed to this report. |
