The most stinging rebuke came when Al Sharpton turned Gephardt's new favorite phrase against the Missouri lawmaker, saying it was a "miserable failure" for Gephardt and other Democrats to have helped authorize the war.
Al is a racist con man, but he is sharp on his feet!
Past Votes Dog Some Candidates
Democrats Defend Siding With Bush
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 12, 2003; Page A01
Presidential candidate John F. Kerry is bashing President Bush's policies on Iraq, education and civil liberties. What he rarely mentions, however, is that his Senate votes helped make all three possible.
The Massachusetts Democrat isn't alone. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) -- who is calling Bush's Iraq policy a "miserable failure" -- led the House fight last year to allow the president to wage the war without the international help the congressman now demands. Gephardt, then the House Democratic leader, also voted for the USA Patriot Act, which expands the government's surveillance powers, and for Bush's No Child Left Behind education program. He often criticizes the policies now.
Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) is calling for Bush to enlist United Nations help in Iraq, even though he, like Kerry and Gephardt, had the opportunity to vote against the war resolution and in support of one demanding U.N. involvement during last fall's congressional debate. Edwards is also calling for changes to the Patriot Act, for which he voted, and more funding for the education plan, which he voted to authorize. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) voted with Bush on all three, too.
That these lawmakers voted with Bush on key issues is complicating their bids to win their party's nomination, as fellow Democrats demand explanations. As the campaign progresses, it also could make it harder for them to draw sharp distinctions with Bush on what are shaping up as among the biggest issues of the 2004 campaign, according to political strategists.
Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman and Gephardt contend that their votes for Bush's agenda took place in much different political climates and were predicated on their beliefs the president would carry out each initiative in a different manner than he has. In Iraq, they say, they believed he would work harder to win U.N. assistance. On the Patriot Act, they believed the administration would carefully protect citizens' privacy and civil rights. And on education, they believed Bush would fully fund the program. Moreover, a large number of congressional Democrats voted the same way they did.
"Your votes are your votes, and you need to stand and explain," Gephardt said. "You have to also describe changes you would like to now make and also be legitimately critical of where the administration has done something" wrong.
Still, their rivals are starting to use the votes against the lawmakers, especially Kerry and Gephardt.
In Tuesday night's debate at Morgan State University, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) -- the only House member running for president to oppose the Bush agenda in Congress -- and others repeatedly accused their rivals of trying to have it both ways, voting with Bush in Congress and bashing him on the campaign trail, especially on Iraq. The most stinging rebuke came when Al Sharpton turned Gephardt's new favorite phrase against the Missouri lawmaker, saying it was a "miserable failure" for Gephardt and other Democrats to have helped authorize the war.
The biggest beneficiary of all this appears to be Howard Dean, who as a former Vermont governor did not have to vote for or against the president's agenda, party strategists said. "He does get a break, because he didn't have to lay it on the line with a vote," said Gerald W. McEntee, international president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
This has freed Dean to become Bush's biggest critic of the war and helped distinguish him from the Democratic pack by allowing him to ridicule Bush's domestic agenda without having to defend a series of votes.
Consider the debate over Bush's $87 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan. While Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman and Gephardt have to make the tough call whether to support it, Dean has refused to even take a position, saying that it is "an issue that is not of my making." If the others vote for the funding as expected, Dean could choose to criticize them for pushing the cost of the Iraq mission to $150 billion, especially if the situation there doesn't improve.
Dean isn't shy about using his rivals' congressional records to his advantage. "You can't be on both sides of an issue," Dean said. "That kills us."
Although Dean was critical of Kerry, Edwards and Gephardt on Iraq and education, he said they should not be "attacked" for their votes for the Patriot Act because that happened during an "atmosphere of enormous emotion."
Shortly after the debate, Dean released a statement chastising Kerry and Edwards for skipping a Senate vote on whether to fully fund the Bush education program. Kerry and Edwards, like most congressional Democrats, say they supported the No Child Left Behind Act under the assumption Bush would provide states enough funding to meet the new mandates. But they missed a recent vote to fully fund the program. "If our nation's children are not getting the quality education they deserve," Dean said, "it's partly because . . . Kerry and Edwards were off somewhere playing hooky."
Congressional voting records can be problematic for presidential candidates. This may partly explainwhy no sitting House member has been elected president since James A. Garfield of Ohio 123 years ago, and no sitting senator since John F. Kennedy in 1960.
The problems facing incumbent House and Senate members transcend their voting records. For starters, they tend to be relatively unknown outside their state, and most don't have the experience of having run a state government as governors do. Four of the last five presidents were governors.
But this year, voting records are a bigger deal than in past elections because six of the nine candidates are in the House or Senate, and virtually all of Bush's biggest accomplishments won the backing of large numbers of Democrats -- including most of those hoping to oust him.
"They're changing their positions as they move further and further out of the mainstream in an effort to appeal to a hard core antiwar and anti-Bush base," said Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie. The result, he said, is a Democratic Party "that has no coherent domestic policy agenda and an increasingly weak and vacillating foreign policy."
As Tuesday's night debate showed, the votes for the resolution authorizing the war in Iraq are proving the most problematic.
Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.), the only senator running for president who opposed the war resolution, went after his rivals by reading its specific language: "The President is authorized to use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate." After reading it, Graham said, "My friends, those who voted for that gave the president a . . . blank check."
Indeed, while Kerry and Gephardt in particular are trying to explain their votes by contending they pressured Bush to win the U.N.'s blessing, lawmakers at the time predicted Bush would wage war alone if Congress allowed him to.
In the House and Senate, Democrats had offered alternative resolutions that explicitly called for U.N.-backing of any military mission in Iraq. But Lieberman, Kerry, Edwards and Gephardt opted for the war resolution. In fact, few Democrats were more outspoken and unwavering supporters of Bush than were Lieberman and Gephardt.
After the resolution passed, Gephardt stood in the White House Rose Garden with Bush as the president signed it. Kucinich accused Gephardt of helping "inform mightily the direction of the war" by working with Bush to pass the war resolution. "I wish that you would have told him no," Kucinich said.
In a recent interview, the Missouri Democrat said he believed "it was right for the country," and still does. Aside from Gephardt, Kerry has caught the most flak for his Iraq vote. His rivals routinely accuse him of "waffling" because he supported the war but now criticizes it.
In his official presidential campaign announcement this month, Kerry characterized his vote for the congressional resolution as threatening the use of force, when his rivals say, he voted for a green light for war. "I am not sure anyone contends sitting in Congress and running for president is an advantage," said Jim Jordan, Kerry's campaign manager. "Leadership sometimes entails making tough choices in unfavorable circumstances."
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