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Politics : Discuss the candidates honestly. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (1334)	7/4/2004 1:35:22 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 4965

Unbelieveable excuses for GW for sitting there on 9-11. Just goes to show some people are so party loyal that they cannot and will not ever acknowledge any weakness in their candidate no matter how obvious. One thing I know, Kerry wouldn't have been siting there reading "My Pet Goat", he'd be taking counter-offensive action.

To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (1334)	7/4/2004 6:49:33 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4965

Kerry drapes himself in red, white and blue but anti-war voters feel a chill By ALAN FREEMAN MINNEAPOLIS -- On one side of the Williams Arena, a giant banner emblazoned with the words A Stronger America was draped across the rafters. As the political meeting began, a soldier just back from Iraq led the crowd in reciting the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance facing a giant flag draped on the other side of the hall. The display of patriotism could have been taken straight out of a Republican rally. But the 5,000 people who gathered at the University of Minnesota yesterday were there to express support for John Kerry, the probable Democratic presidential candidate. At the start of yesterday's rally, he introduced eight Vietnam veterans who served with him on so-called fast boats, chasing Viet Cong fighters in the Mekong Delta, and he delivered a line he has been using since the January primaries. The meeting kicked off a massive push to get a million veterans to sign up for the Kerry campaign for the November vote. He never misses an opportunity to praise the sacrifices of U.S. soldiers present and past, and to remind voters of his own military record. But he risks alienating anti-war voters by calling for more defence spending and an increase of 40,000 in U.S. troop levels, as well as failing to map out an alternative strategy for dealing with Iraq. Meg Sirianni, a 41-year-old part-time yoga teacher who home-schools her four children, is such a voter. She had a John Kerry button pinned on her 'Neighbours for Peace' T-shirt yesterday but is worried about the candidate's strong pro-military position. "It's impossible to vote for him and know exactly what you're voting for," she complained. Minnesota is one of about 15 swing states where the vote could go either way in November. It has a long-standing Democratic tradition, but growth in the suburbs around Minneapolis-St. Paul and other cities in the state have nudged it toward the Republicans. According to a recent CBS opinion poll, 54 per cent of veterans say they back Mr. Bush, while 40 per cent say they are behind Mr. Kerry. Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., said Mr. Kerry is taking a calculated risk in emphasizing his military credentials. In attempting to win votes among conservatives who are unhappy with Mr. Bush's conduct of the Iraq war, he may lose anti-war votes to left-wing independent Ralph Nader, Prof. Schier said. That could be dangerous in Minnesota, where Mr. Nader took 5 per cent of the vote in 2000. Mr. Kerry did not mention Mr. Bush or the Republicans by name in yesterday's speech, but he harshly criticized their approach to the war. As for what he would do next in Iraq, he was noticeably vague, saying only that he would rely more in the future on traditional international allies. "I'd like to learn how he would bring in all those allies to help us out," said John Slater, a 37-year-old corporate communications specialist who opposed the war from the start, but now doesn't favour an immediate pullout. "Now that we're there, we've got to finish the job."