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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (2488)	2/15/2004 6:38:23 PM
From: Eashoa' M'sheekha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Senator Electable has too easy a ride.. Did you read this before posting it to me? It is saying E-X-A-C-T-L-y what I have been trying to get across to the KerryMoochers here and there. Your e position of selecting the messenger before the message rings hollow. This is not the Pony Express here ChinuSFO. This is not federal express or UPS. The messenger in this case IS the message.His positions, actions and historical record are what the people should be looking at, not whether he can deliver the message without getting shot at and wounded or fall off his pony. That's a job for orators and preachers and actors and the like, not for people put in the position of extreme importance to " The Free World "... Please read this...Puuuulllleeeease! LOL! See ya later..... maybe <GG> Julian Borger Guardian Weekly John Kerry is not even debating his Democratic rivals for the presidential nomination any more. His attacks are aimed almost exclusively at President Bush, sending the message that the real battle is between the two of them now. And although this has been a primary race of unexpected ups and downs, history and momentum are on Kerry's side. It would take an accident or an act of extraordinary self-destruction for him to lose the nomination at this point in the game. If the contest is indeed wrapped up, that would be a shame - not just for the grand circus of consultants, pundits and journalists that follows the primaries around the country. It will also be a loss, paradoxically, for Senator Kerry and the Democratic party. For one thing, the show has been playing well to a receptive public, and far from damaging the Democrats, as had been expected, the jousting has eaten into George Bush's support by airing popular grievances. So much so that a president who has by and large ignored the press took the risk last weekend of subjecting himself to an hour-long television inquisition about Iraq, weapons of mass destruction and the president's own military past. He even promised to show his records from his days in the National Guard to counter allegations that he went missing when he should have been reporting for duty in Alabama. The interview was the clearest sign yet that the White House is rattled. The president's approval ratings have sunk below 50%, and relatively few Americans believe he did his duty in the Vietnam era (39%) compared with the 60% who acknowledge Kerry's sacrifice as a Navy lieutenant piloting high-speed river boats under fire. The primaries have brought Kerry's old "band of brothers" from the war out of the woodwork and reminded Americans of the courageous young man that preceded the frosty New England patrician. But an early end to the primaries would be problematic for the Democrats for another reason. Kerry has been given an easy ride so far. He inherited his frontrunner status for largely negative reasons. He was not Howard Dean. Just by sticking around, and remaining both acceptable and predictable, he was able to reap the support of rank-and-file Democrats. Kerry has won one primary contest after another because the voters believe him to be "electable". That may be enough to win the primaries, but it will not be enough to beat Bush, who has already proven his electability. For that, he will have to draw a clearer picture of what he stands for. Kerry's disastrous first months as a candidate, when his aloofness and wooden speaking style left him trailing behind Dean and General Wesley Clark, also offered him a vital lesson. Losing finally forced him to cast off some of that "noblesse oblige" weariness and show some passion. He brought his wife and children and Vietnam veterans on stage with him to help him loosen up. He let them do much of the talking and was content to bask in their affection before closing the performance with his pitch. He may have served 19 years as a senator, but he badly needed these past few months as election training. However, it is arguable that he needs even more time. One of the many remarkable aspects of the past few weeks is that Kerry was given such an easy ride as frontrunner by the other candidates. Dean took shots at him, but he was already so far behind by early February that he could safely be ignored. John Edwards and General Clark have meanwhile been busier attacking each other to become the Southern alternative to Kerry. Consequently, the inevitable chinks in his armour left by 19 years of congressional voting and horse-trading, but very few actual laws with his name on, have not been seriously tested. The press has made much of the running, looking into campaign contributions from businesses and individuals who did well as a result of Kerry's political influence, but his campaign has so far been able to shrug off as coincidence the timing of money transfers and votes. That will not be so easy when the Republicans begin their election-year offensive. The same goes for the overall tone of his legislative past. He ranked as the ninth most liberal senator in Congress in an appraisal by the National Journal. In his first run for the Senate, in 1984, he called for the cancellation of expensive Pentagon projects, including the B-1 bomber and the F-15 fighter jet - both now generally regarded as indispensable. He has since described his policy positions as "ill-advised" and "stupid". Kerry has also struggled to explain his proposal to cut funding for the CIA in the 1990s, now that it is clear that the agency's shortcomings were in part responsible for the disaster of September 11 and the misinterpretation of the signs coming out of Iraq. A longer primary against a pro-defence centrist like John Edwards would give Kerry a better chance to refine his position. It would also give a much wider cross-section of Democratic voters another chance to revisit the whole idea of electability, in light of the political mainstream. It is probable that they would come up with the same answer - that Kerry's military and foreign relations experience, together with 19 years in the Senate, however flawed, trump Edwards' four years as a centrist and former trial lawyer. Liberal senators have not been too popular in the US since the days of JFK. But in the eyes of the public, lawyers are even worse, almost as bad as journalists. But even if a few more primary contests simply confirmed Kerry as the nominee, the Democrats would emerge with a sharper candidate as a result. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004