Posted on 02/07/2004 10:46:12 AM PST by Eurotwit
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - As Democrats in two states went to the polls, front-runner John Kerry (news - web sites) vowed Saturday to aggressively counter Republican critics, drawing a stark contrast between his party and the GOP. "They're extreme. We're mainstream, and we're going to stand up and fight back," he said.
The Massachusetts senator, under fire from White House allies, sought to assure Democrats that he won't repeat mistakes of 1988 Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, who responded cautiously to George H.W. Bush's assertions that he was a Massachusetts liberal.
"This week, George Bush and the Republican smear machine have trotted out the same old tired lines of attack that they've used before to divide this nation and to evade the real issues before us. Well, I have news for George Bush, Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie and the rest of their gang: I have fought for my country my whole life. I'm not going to back down now," Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, said in remarks prepared for delivery Saturday night to Virginia Democrats in Richmond.
Rove is President Bush (news - web sites)'s top political adviser. Gillespie, head of the Republican Party, has borrowed from the 1988 play book to label Kerry a Massachusetts liberal with a "long record in the Senate is one of advocating policies that would weaken our national security."
As votes were being counted in Michigan and Washington state caucuses, Kerry looked beyond his bickering Democratic rivals to the fall election. Kerry is trying to convince voters that he's above party wrangling and ready to focus on Bush.
"This is one Democrat who's going to fight back, and I've only just begun to fight," he said. "George Bush, who speaks of strength, has made America weaker — weaker economically, weaker in health care and education. And the truth is George Bush has made us weaker militarily by overextending our forces, overstraining our reserves, and driving away our allies."
Earlier, Kerry said he'll campaign against Bush in the South, dismissing Republican assertions that he is too liberal and out of touch to win in Dixie.
"This administration is busy trying to paint everybody else as out of touch, out of synch, somehow out of the mainstream," Kerry said at a Nashville university. "But let me tell you something: I'm not worried about coming down South and talking to people about jobs, schools, health care and the environment. I think it's (the president) who ought to worry about coming down here."
Kerry made the remarks at the beginning of a weekend swing through Tennessee and Virginia, the two states holding elections Tuesday. His main rivals, John Edwards (news - web sites) and Wesley Clark (news - web sites), need a victory in the Southern primaries to keep their races afloat.
Kerry has gotten himself in trouble by suggesting that a Democrat can win the presidency without carrying a Southern state. While that may be mathematically possible, even Kerry's own advisers say it was indiscreet to talk of putting an entire region off the Democrats' political map.
In his Virginia remarks, Kerry said Democrats represent the mainstream, Republicans the "extreme," on a number of issues, including tax cuts, fiscal responsibility, health care, violence against women, the federal judiciary, civil liberties and national security.
"Our opponents now say they want to campaign on national security. But this is the same administration that slashes health care for veterans, tries to cut combat pay for our troops in the field, makes injured soldiers pay for their own hospital meals, and leaves soldiers on their own to buy high-tech flak jackets," he said. "We are fighting for the mainstream value of a stronger America and for the ideal that the first duty of patriotism is to honor those who wear and have worn the uniform of the United States."
Kerry, a Navy veteran, said: "We all saw George Bush play dress-up on an aircraft carrier. Well, I know something about aircraft carriers for real. And if George W. Bush wants to make national security the central issue in this campaign, I have three words for him I know he understands: Bring it on."
It's a standard line in his stump speeches, one repeated in unison by cheering crowds.
Kerry's rivals have all but conceded three elections in Michigan, Washington state and Maine, and Kerry hopes to knock Edwards and Clark from the race with a sweep Tuesday.
Beyond that, the Democratic field, which still includes Dean, is moving to a potentially decisive showdown Feb. 17 in Wisconsin.
"When you add up the real deficits in our nation ... it's not just measured in money, it's measured in the hopes that are dashed," Kerry said in a speech to several hundred supporters Belmont University in Nashville.
Kerry said that when he engages with Bush, "it will be clear across this land that the one person who deserves to be laid off is George W. Bush."
Yeah right.
- Supporting partial-birth abortion isn't "extreme." (Kerry voted against banning this extreme "procedure.")- Supporting changing the meaning of marriage isn't "extreme." (Kerry voted against the Defense of Marriage Act)
- Supporting enormous tax increases isn't "extreme." (Kerry voted for Clinton's tax increases, the biggest in US history.)
No, Kerry's not extreme at all. /sarcasm
Kerry Plants Phony Hecklers to Look Tough!
Rush Limbaugh ^ | Feb. 6, 2004 | Ruch Limbaugh
AP's Ron Fournier reported that a Portland heckler yelled out to John Kerry, "Why don't you tell them about your vote on the war and the Patriot Act?" The senator is said to have "swiftly responded." He's quoted as saying, "I'll explain them all as we go along. I never run away from anything, especially George Bush."
A great comeback – or is it? The American Prowler: "John Kerry's campaign is planting volunteers at his appearances in order to make him appear tougher. At a rally yesterday at which he accepted the endorsement of Maine Gov. John Baldacci, Kerry faced down a heckler in the Portland audience... The candidate seemed to be quick on his feet in the response, and his retort garnered applause. Perhaps his quick thinking was the result of knowing the jibe was coming."
This information comes from "a Kerry campaign source," folks. Reports the Prowler, "[T]he campaign has been looking to plant local volunteers in crowds to mix it up, and to make it appear their man is facing down tough questioning. 'This kind of confrontation pushes him up the line in news coverage,' says the staffer. 'Instead of facing a tough question from a reporter, the news guys have this seeming give and take to report on.'" Can you believe this?
Like every Democrat, he has no imagination, no new ideas.
He either parrots Howard Dean or copies President Bush.
Whether it's bashing Bush on the war, having a photo op with an aircraft carrier or twisting the phrase, "bring it on", Kerry is second fiddle.
When November 2, 2004 is history, he will revert to his former status as a has been.
http://i.timeinc.net/time/covers/1101040209/images/376_nattack.jpg
If anyone can store this somewhere where it can be retrieved by anyone, please help.
During the 2000 campaign there was a free CD put out with nifty pictures of the candidates.
What he telling this homosexual group dedicated to making
homosexual marriage a reality, he is "personally" opposed to homosexual marriage.
http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:krjlCeu6gpMJ:www.hrc.org/pressroom/olpc/pres_forum/high_res/kerry1v.jpg
I can't get the larger quality image.
This guy makes me want to vomit. How long was he in the military -- one year? And he was in the Navy on a swift boat. Yet he knows all about aircraft carriers? I don't know how I'm going to stand listening to this nonsense for the next nine months.
I had a hope dashed, too. I hoped that Howard Dean would be the nominee -- at least he's more entertaining than this pompous twit. Where's my reparations?
He already has. There is a Bush campaign commercial on ice, waiting for the right time to debut, that will destroy him in his own words.
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