Posted on 07/03/2004 3:15:39 PM PDT by tgslTakoma
INDEPENDENCE, Wis. (Reuters) - John Kerry, veteran senator from Massachusetts, New England blue blood and Democratic White House hopeful, learned to swear from a farmer, loved to drive a tractor and once had a passion for plowing.· 'Kid from the East' Kerry Feels Farmers' Pain.
"When I was a kid, this kid from the East, I had an aunt and uncle who owned a dairy farm," Kerry told a town hall meeting on Saturday in Independence, midway through a 546-mile July 4 weekend road trip across America's heartland to win over rural voters.
The son of a diplomat who was educated at exclusive schools, attended Yale, volunteered to serve in the Vietnam War and was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984, Kerry has been trying to connect with middle America and shake off the Northeastern liberal label pinned on him by President Bush and his Republican allies.
"I've been out here a lot over 20 years plus," he told about 150 invited guests at the Dejno family farm, where he toured the aromatic calving shed and milking center. "And we actually have farms in Massachusetts."
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who this month will be formally anointed the party's challenger to Bush in the Nov. 2 election, vowed to fight for family farmers by banning unfair trade practices and fully implementing country-of-origin labeling so Americans "know where the products they buy are coming from."
Kerry charged Bush's economic, trade and energy policies had hurt rural America.
"They say this is the best we can do," he said. "Don't tell us losing 3,200 dairy farms in Wisconsin is the best we can do. We have the best family farmers in America but we're denying them the fair chance to compete."
HEARTLAND BATTLEGROUND
On a three-day bus trip through Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, Kerry hoped to cut into support for Bush in rural areas that could help tip the balance in battleground states.
"I was driving down here ... and I was saying, 'Look at the power of that land.' You can just feel it, you see it. I know what you love, I know why you're here, I know what you feel about this and we've got to help," he said.
Kerry's schedule has been packed with all-American activities to celebrate the Independence Day holiday, from the name of the town chosen for Saturday's forum, to throwing a football, eating barbecue and watching fireworks from a boat on the Mississippi, a far cry from the posh New England sailing meccas of Cape Cod and Nantucket where he said he normally spent the Fourth of July.
At the Gunslick Trap Club in Holmen, Kerry shouldered a borrowed 12-gauge shotgun and picked off 17 out of 25 clay "birds." Afterward, he said he preferred to hunt because of the open-air experience of tracking and finding game.
"I just do what I normally do," Kerry told reporters who asked whether an outdoorsman image was important to his campaign. "This is stuff I've done all my life."
During the discussion of agricultural issues, the senator said he lived on a farm when he was very young and had "learned my first cuss word sitting on a tractor with the guy who was driving it."
"When I was 12 years old, my passion was being allowed to go out and sit on the John Deere and drive it around the fields and plow. And I learned as a kid what it was like looking back and see those furrows, and see that pattern and feel a sense of accomplishment, and end up dusty and dirty and tired, but feeling great, looking back at that field that you'd plowed," Kerry said.
Yep, there's more bull than cow to this fairy tale. It's getting deep so time to pull on the boots.
Yea, that, too. Why not?
"Kumbya" or perhaps "Revolution", perhaps the theme song to the show "Mister Ed"? : )
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee... vowed to fight for family farmers by banning unfair trade practices and fully implementing country-of-origin labeling so Americans "know where the products they buy are coming from."
I wonder what is the country of origin of the tomatoes that go into Heinz ketchup?
So...how much farming has Bush done? I know he's done some ranching, but he's just as priveleged and Yale-blooded as Kerry is.
FOFLMAO! That ain't right.
Today, Senator John Kerry applied for a 4th purple heart after receiving another superficial wound.
(A really mean person would tell Kerry to pretend the clay pigeon was a wounded NVA soldier)
The reporter on Fox, Kammerer(?) was clearly having a hard time not busting out laughing at the total hypocrisy of it.
What a total phony this man is. I really don't know how I would be able to stand listening to the garbage he puts out for 4 years.
Check out #2
PULL!!
When Vietnam came along, they were both ready for action--five months worth each. Having been shafted all of their lives, they devoted themselves to politics where they got their revenge by shafting everyone else. They continue to this day.
Are people falling for it?
Some more ideas:
"This is nothing personal, Senator. It's strictly business."
"Dang! There ain't nothing in there to hit!"
"Okay, okay, I admit it! I voted for the $87 Billion before I voted against it! You don't have to hold a gun to my head!!"
Green acres is the place to be
Farm living is the life for me
Land spreading out, so far and wide
Keep Massachusetts, just give me that countryside.
haha ! That looks photoshopped, but it's not. It doesn't get any better than that.Can't wait to see Registered's take on that one.
That's it! No more "Pull my Finger!"
You got it?
Dork alert. Boob alert. Doofus alert.
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