Dairy-state pitch
Wisconsin Democrats and supporters of Sen. John Kerry tried to have some campaign fun yesterday at the expense of President Bush, but they wound up creating a new sexual minority — the bovine hermaphrodite.
They planted a 30-foot inflatable cow with the words "Say no to Bush's milk tax/Vote Kerry" hanging from a banner on the side near Mr. Bush's first campaign stop in Onalaska, Wis. The point was to draw attention to Mr. Bush's lack of support for the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC), a program that subsidizes dairy farmers if the price of milk drops too low.
But the cow drew raised eyebrows, according to James G. Lakely of The Washington Times, when reporters noticed that the ostensibly female animal had horns.
The Kerry campaign said it was not a mistake.
"The horns on her head represent George Bush's devilish plot to eliminate the MILC program if he is re-elected, not because she's some kind of weird bull/cow that doesn't really exist," spokesman Phil Singer said.
What Kerry said
"Ever since John Kerry decided his best tack in this campaign was to turn against the Iraq war, despite his past support for it, his core argument has been that it was a diversion from the war on terror," Weekly Standard editor William Kristol writes at the magazine's Web site (www.weeklystandard.com).
"Iraq, he has been insisting, had nothing to do with that war, which is about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, pure and simple. The administration erred, he now claims, by turning its attention to Iraq.
"But it turns out that Kerry felt entirely differently at the time. In an interview with John McLaughlin on Nov. 16, 2001 — just two months after September 11 and before victory in Afghanistan was assured — Kerry was asked, 'What do we have to worry about [in Afghanistan]?' Kerry answered:
" 'I have no doubt, I've never had any doubt — and I've said this publicly — about our ability to be successful in Afghanistan. We are, and we will be. The larger issue, John, is what happens afterwards. How do we now turn attention ultimately to Saddam Hussein? How do we deal with the larger Muslim world? What is our foreign policy going to be to drain the swamp of terrorism on a global basis?' ...
"So on Nov. 16, 2001, with the war in Afghanistan but a few weeks old and Osama bin Laden not yet captured, John Kerry was raising the bar for the Bush administration, wondering when it would go after Saddam Hussein," Mr. Kristol said.
Battle of the bulge
President Bush joked yesterday about Internet rumors — picked up by the major media — that during the debates aides secretly fed him advice through a radio receiver hidden on his back.
"Please explain to me how it works so maybe if I were ever to debate again, I could figure it out," Mr. Bush said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
After television cameras showed a box-shaped bulge on his back during the first presidential debate, Internet bloggers wondered whether Mr. Bush had been wired to receive help with his responses from aides such as White House communications director Dan Bartlett and senior adviser Karen Hughes, the Associated Press notes.
When asked about the bulge that appeared as he and Sen. John Kerry debated Sept. 30 in Coral Gables, Fla., Mr. Bush tantalized conspiracy theorists by saying, "Well, you know, Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett had rigged up a sound system ..."
"You are getting in trouble," responded host Charles Gibson.
"I don't know what that is," Mr. Bush said. "I mean, it is — I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt."
Mr. Bush added: "I guess the assumption was that if I were straying off course they would ... kind of like a hunting dog, they would punch a buzzer and I would jerk back into place. That's just absurd."
Hair wars
President Bush is maintaining a lead in the national election opinion polls, but Sen. John Kerry is quickly closing the gap in a survey that might matter to him more than the presidency.
Asked by the Wahl Clipper Corp. which man had the better hair, the American public gave Mr. Bush a lead of one percentage point, 41 percent to 40 percent, and Mr. Kerry clearly has the momentum.
The Democratic nominee during the summer told crowds that he and running mate Sen. John Edwards had better hair than the president and vice president, drawing derision from some columnists for seeming vain.
But those snips didn't dampen the public's opinion of the Democrats' hair — in fact, they may have helped. In their May survey, Wahl found Mr. Bush with a commanding lead in the hair department, 51 percent to 30 percent. And even after the conventions Wahl, the inventors of the electric hair clippers, found Mr. Bush leading by 10 percentage points.
The folks at Wahl wouldn't take a cut at what might be going on.
"We are just accurately reporting the results as they come in," a spokeswoman said.
Sen. Pumpkin
Uncle by marriage isn't stopping California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from poking fun at Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's weight.
And the movie star-turned-politician has decided that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, Mr. Kennedy's Massachusetts colleague in the Senate, is fair game too, the Associated Press reports.
At a campaign appearance in Menlo Park for a Republican candidate to the California Assembly, Mr. Schwarzenegger apologized for being a few minutes late, explaining that he had been pumpkin hunting with his children. Mr. Schwarzenegger is married to Maria Shriver, Mr. Kennedy's niece.
"My kids just brought home a beautiful pumpkin, but you know what? I'm going to return it because it's a Democratic pumpkin. It has the orange color of John Kerry's tan, and the roundness of Teddy Kennedy," the Republican governor said.
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com. |
