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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (807)	2/7/2004 11:11:38 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 173976

Kerry Vows to Fight GOP 'Smear Machine' 1 hour, 8 minutes ago Add Politics - AP to My Yahoo! By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer RICHMOND, VA. - Democratic front-runner John Kerry (news - web sites) vowed Saturday to aggressively counter Republican critics, calling President Bush (news - web sites)'s party extremist — and out of touch with mainstream America. "I am not going to back down," he said. Flush from victories in Michigan and Washington state, the candidate who built his candidacy around his valorous Vietnam War record said, "I am one Democrat who knows how to fight back, and I've only just begun to fight." The Massachusetts senator, under fire from Bush's allies, is seeking to assure Democrats that he won't repeat mistakes of 1988 Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, who responded cautiously to the president's assertions that he was a liberal. "This week, George Bush and the Republican smear machine has begun trotting out the same old tired lines of attack that they've used before to divide this nation and to evade the real issues before us," Kerry told Virginia Democrats at their annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Richmond. "I have news this time for George Bush and Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie and the rest of their friends: I am not going to back down." Rove is President Bush's top political adviser. Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee (news - web sites), has borrowed from the 1988 play book to label Kerry a Massachusetts liberal with a "long record in the Senate is one of advocating policies that would weaken our national security." Kerry overpowered all rivals with huge victories in Washington and Michigan on Saturday, and polls showed him comfortably ahead in Maine, where Democrats vote Sunday. A weekend sweep would make him 10-2 in primary season races, in dominate control of the nomination fight as it moves to the South on Tuesday. The hot streak allows Kerry to look beyond his bickering Democratic rivals to the November election. "George Bush, who speaks of strength, has actually made America weaker — weaker economically, weaker in health care for all our citizens, and weaker in education," Kerry said. "The truth is George Bush has made us weaker militarily by overextending our armed forces" and driving away our allies." Earlier, Kerry said he'll campaign against Bush in the South, dismissing Republican assertions that he is too liberal and out of touch to win in Dixie. "This administration is busy trying to paint everybody else as out of touch, out of synch, somehow out of the mainstream," Kerry said at a Nashville university. "But let me tell you something: I'm not worried about coming down South and talking to people about jobs, schools, health care and the environment. I think it's (Bush) who ought to worry about coming down here." Kerry made the remarks at the beginning of a weekend swing through Tennessee and Virginia, the two states holding elections Tuesday. His main rivals, John Edwards (news - web sites) and Wesley Clark (news - web sites), need a victory in the Southern primaries to keep their races afloat. Kerry has gotten himself in trouble by suggesting that a Democrat can win the presidency without carrying a Southern state. While that may be mathematically possible, even his own advisers say it was indiscreet to talk of putting an entire region off the Democrats' political map. In his Virginia remarks, Kerry said Democrats represent the mainstream, while Republicans are the "extreme" on a number of issues, including tax cuts, fiscal responsibility, health care, violence against women, the federal judiciary, civil liberties and national security.