Posted on 07/26/2004 6:36:35 AM PDT by ppaul
BOSTON — A group of College Democrats was talking about Congressman Jim McDermott last night when the group's president-elect walked up.
Grant Woodard, an earnest khakis-and-blazer-type from Grinnell College in Iowa, demurred when asked his opinion of the liberal Seattle Democrat, saying he didn't really know anything about him.
"Sure you do," said Luther Lowe, Woodard's campaign manager. (Here, even collegiate politicians, it seems, have managers and speechwriters.) "He's the 'Fahrenheit 9/11' guy."
Say no more.
"Oh, he's the psychiatrist," Woodard said. "Just on what I saw of him in the movie, if that's what he's like all the time, we need more like him."
McDermott's appearance in Michael Moore's blockbuster documentary has made him a star among liberals.
Yesterday, while waiting to speak to the College Democrats, he was recognized by young people from all over the country, asked to pose for photos and received thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by Moore.
The McDermott show was only a little piece of the action — and there was plenty of it — on the day before the Democratic National Convention convenes to nominate Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to be the party's candidate for president.
Even before the last bunting was hung in the sports arena being converted for Boston's first national political convention, the first big protests filled downtown streets.
A crowd estimated by The Associated Press at 3,000 gathered on Boston Common to protest the war while about 1,000 more demonstrators were at Faneuil Hall, the pre-revolution gathering place for American patriots, to rally against abortion.
There was a heavy police presence throughout the city, including lines of officers in full riot gear. Military police could also be seen around the convention-center grounds in a fast-moving single-file line.
Tall, heavy, steel fences keep demonstrators — and anyone without proper credentials — from even getting close to the FleetCenter, the venue Democrats have taken over.
This will be the first post-9/11 national political convention, and security has been a major priority.
Tonight, Bill and Hillary Clinton are scheduled to give the coveted prime-time speeches. Among others, delegates will hear today from former President Carter, former Vice President Al Gore and a shipmate of Kerry's from the Vietnam War.
A draft warning
For McDermott, the gaggle that formed around him yesterday was somewhere between that for Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware at the low end, and the real measure of such things here: the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Campaigning for Kerry before the young Democrats, McDermott continued the anti-war and anti-George W. Bush messages he talked about in the movie.
He told the students that changes in military combat tours is "an unwritten, sneak draft." And he said an official draft could be coming soon.
"Everybody in this room who is 17 years old should know that the likelihood of a draft in a second Bush administration is almost a certainty," McDermott said.
Convention organizers are working hard to keep all speeches as upbeat, optimistic and nice as possible, at least within the bounds of American political discourse.
"You're going to see positive themes, not bashing the president," said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the chairman of the convention, quickly adding, "There'll be some of that. Hang in there."
McDermott said he sent his College Democrats speech to the Kerry campaign for vetting. He didn't hear anything back.
The claim that President Bush will impose a draft, though, was not in the written speech.
The Bush campaign said McDermott was distorting facts.
"This administration has been clear that a draft is not something under consideration," said Bush campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. "The president has said he will take the advice regarding the need for troops from military commanders responsible for winning the war on terror. We have an all-volunteer military in this country, and it serves us very well."
Unlikely Kerry surrogate
In some ways, McDermott is an unlikely surrogate for Kerry. He was a Howard Dean supporter in the primary season and was not at all shy about criticizing Kerry.
At a party dinner in Tacoma last year, McDermott took the stage shortly before Kerry delivered the keynote address.
The congressman, there to warm up the crowd, criticized the policies promoted by Kerry as "Republican lite" and said the party could not win against Bush unless it moved to the left, while Kerry was clinging to the center.
Watching from the wings that night was U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Tacoma, the first member of Congress to endorse Kerry.
"I don't think John took that as hard as Adam did," McDermott said yesterday. "It's always the adherents who react."
Smith, though, said last night he wasn't angry. He figured McDermott just "has a different constituency than I do."
Smith, co-chairman of Kerry's Washington state campaign, said McDermott has been helpful by speaking about health care and by appealing to the party's liberal base.
"There's a lot of people who feel very strongly about a number of mistakes President Bush has made and all kinds of emotions that go into that, and Jim taps into that emotion," Smith said.
McDermott was doing that before he appeared in Moore's movie. He angered Republicans and some Democrats in Congress with comments critical of Bush that he made in a pre-war trip to Iraq and by refusing to say "under God" when delivering the Pledge of Allegiance in the House chambers.
Biden told the College Democrats that McDermott "has more moxie than any other member of Congress."
McDermott used the movie in his speech as an example of what he thinks the Bush administration has wrought. He criticized conservatives' attempts to get theaters not to show the movie, and The Walt Disney Co.'s refusal to distribute it.
McDermott describes the effects of the movie in terms not even heard from the filmmaker himself.
In getting the movie made, distributed and seen by so many, McDermott said, "We really saved the Constitution and the Bill of Rights."
David Postman: 360-943-9882 or dpostman@seattletimes.com.
Carol Cassady - Vote for her. Very conservative R. BTTT
NOt true, Jenny. Carol Cassady is running against him for the second time. She is great. (Don't know if she has a chance there, though.)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1223933/posts
Yup, there it was, all along.
McDermott - Democrat, Washington
Campaigning for Kerry before the young Democrats, McDermott continued the anti-war and anti-George W. Bush messages he talked about in the movie.
He told the students that changes in military combat tours is "an unwritten, sneak draft." And he said an official draft could be coming soon.
"Everybody in this room who is 17 years old should know that the likelihood of a draft in a second Bush administration is almost a certainty," McDermott said.
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