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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (542986)	2/19/2004 10:53:52 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 769670

kerryboy: liar, pickpocket, demagogue, murderer, puppet of interest groups

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (542986)	2/19/2004 10:56:03 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 769670

In 2000 former senator Al Gore went back to his old haunts to find Sen. Joe Lieberman as his partner. And now the Democratic race has come down to John Kerry, the senator from Massachusetts, and John Edwards, the senator from North Carolina. Is that helpful to Democratic prospects in November? I doubt it. John Kennedy was the last sitting senator to win the White House, which says something about how much voters value the lawmaking and largely rhetorical work of the Senate chamber as preparation for national leadership. The senators and former senators who lost -- Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale and Gore -- all were highly regarded by their colleagues and, operating in an era when Democrats usually controlled the Senate, all of them had notable legislative achievements to their credit. But that counted for little with the voters, who rightly suspect that a body with 100 members is not the best place to develop executive management skills or demonstrate national leadership. If that was true in the past, it is even truer now, when Republicans have run Capitol Hill for more than eight years. Edwards's great boast is that he helped pass a patients' bill of rights in the Senate, but it died in the House and never became law. That's about what he has to show for his five years in office. Kerry has been there nearly four times as long and has actually worked on significant environmental and foreign policy questions. But if you ask what he's done lately, he talks about things he's blocked -- such as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- not things he's passed. Because Howard Dean was the only representative of gubernatorial ranks in this year's race, the legislative backgrounds of the candidates have not become an explicit issue for most voters. Dean talked intermittently about being the only candidate who had actually balanced a budget or managed an ambitious health care program. But mostly he engaged the senators on their own ground -- arguing about the wisdom of their votes on Iraq, the Patriot Act and the No Child Left Behind legislation. Not surprisingly, his effort to beat them in that arena failed. With abundant common sense, most voters understand that a Senate voting record is hardly a definitive test of anyone's capacity to be president. Kennedy was an indifferent legislator, but that didn't limit his vision as president. And Bob Dole was a superb legislator whose talents, as voters discerned, were ill-suited to the White House. The conventional wisdom is that this election, like most involving an incumbent, will largely be a referendum on George Bush's record in office. To the extent that is true, either Kerry or Edwards is well equipped for the coming battle. Both have been engaged in a constant critique over the past three-plus years of Bush's actions, policies and appointments. Edwards has led some of the Judiciary Committee's cross-examinations of men and women Bush wanted to place on the federal bench. Kerry has fought the administration on energy legislation and many other fronts. So if the campaign is about indicting Bush, these guys are probably as good a pair of advocates as their party could put forward -- two lawyers well equipped to plead for political conviction of the Republican president. But at some point in most elections, undecided voters are inclined to ask, "So what have you done that tells me you could handle the presidency?" That's when senators often have a hard time answering. The Senate is a remarkable place, but it's not the real world. And voters know it. davidbroder@washpost.com