Vietnam Veteran and wealthy gigolo John F. Kerry on the 32-foot Contender boat owned by his family.
Posted on 06/20/2004 1:51:02 PM PDT by nwrep
NANTUCKET, Mass. - After a week of campaigning for the less fortunate, John Kerry (news - web sites) went on vacation with the fabulously wealthy.
Kerry is a rich man who promotes the Democratic ideal that government should do more to help the poor. He moves between both worlds, spending the past week traveling to downtrodden places like South-side Columbus, Ohio, and the affluent island playground of Nantucket.
Not since President Kennedy have Democrats been prepared to nominate a man of such riches. President Clinton (news - web sites) didn't own a home until he left the White House and President Carter was a peanut farmer. Both grew up poor in the South, as did President Johnson before them.
Kerry was educated at boarding school in Europe, prep school in New England and at Yale. He married two wealthy women and his second wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, is heir to the $500 million Heinz food fortune.
Like Kerry, President Bush (news - web sites) is a Yale graduate who has benefited from his wealth and family connections. But Bush spends his down time as more of an everyman, preferring to spend vacations at his Texas ranch clearing brush.
"Most Americans don't sit in Martha's Vineyard, swilling white wine," he said at the ranch two years ago.
Kerry says he and Bush are both lucky to come from privilege, but that the difference between them is in the values they now fight for. Kerry says Bush favors the wealthy, and Kerry plans to raise taxes on people making more than $200,000 a year to pay for health care, education and other programs he says would uplift all Americans.
Still, Kerry doesn't hide his membership as one of America's moneyed elite.
Shortly after securing the Democratic presidential nomination in March, Kerry took off on a skiiing and snowboarding vacation at the couple's nearly $5 million home in affluent Ketchum, Idaho.
Kerry spent Father's Day weekend at his wife's $9.1 million, five-bedroom waterfront home on Nantucket, where people get dressed up for dinner and the men aren't afraid to wear pink jackets — known locally as Nantucket red.
The Nantucket Independent reported last week that the average home sold for $1.4 million and that desirable weekly summer rentals can cost $25,000 or more.
Kerry and Teresa Heinz were married at the home in 1995. She had planned to fly up with Kerry from Washington on Saturday, but decided at the last minute to follow aboard her own private jet.
Kerry spokesman David Wade said rather than try to create a less patrician image of the Democratic candidate, staff knows, "you've got to let Kerry be Kerry."
"It's Father's Day weekend," Wade said. "It's a place he and his family have been coming to for years. He loves being out on the ocean, out on the water."
Kerry's two daughters joined the couple for a weekend of boating and dinner Saturday at The Pearl, where such delicacies as Tempura of Maryland Soft Shell Crabs cost $33. Their dining companions included fellow Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, his wife and her parents.
On Sunday, Kerry wanted to go kite surfing. But after taking his stepson's 31-foot Contender fishing boat out to the secluded Eel Point, Kerry found that the wind had died. He returned with a wave at the three boats of journalists and staff who sailed out to watch. Several Secret service agents kept watch from the beach.
Some locals worry that, if elected, Kerry's visits will disrupt life on the increasingly congested island. The Secret Service (news - web sites) is sensitive to those concerns and has tried to minimize the impact of its security measures. Kerry's motorcade here, for example, did not use the usual flashing lights and sirens.
Most of the residents Kerry encountered clapped and encouraged him, but his presence still left some grumbling.
Jay Starr, owner of Nantucket's Starr Fish Charters, said the Secret Service shut down a public boat ramp Sunday morning, denying residents access to the water. "I like the guy, but he's going to lock up the island," Starr said.
But Greg Lockhart, manager of the Young's Bicycle Shop, where Kerry bought two $8 bike tubes Sunday, said reporters trailing Kerry around the island were the only disruption.
"This island has treated famous and well-off people as though they were normal people for a long time," Lockhart said. "It's one of the reasons they come here."
Vietnam Veteran and wealthy gigolo John F. Kerry on the 32-foot Contender boat owned by his family.
Can an Alex Polier update be far behind????????????
And like the SUV's that Kerry's "family" owns, we all know those boats don't use much gas. (sarcasm)
What a hypocrite.
Oh never mind he's a liberal, they're all hypocrites
Kerry is in Nantucket because thats where he thinks he belongs, He goes to poor Urban communities to pimp for Votes. The poor wont see much of Kerry if he is elected, Bill Clinton went to Harlem to make a statement, , but they never see him there and his office being there hasnt helped Harlem one Iota. The dems put on a good show, but its all show.
"Just give me Park Avenue, dahling."
Orders from Hillary?
Hitlery Rotten's campaign has just begun.
Dubya received ZERO assistance from Poppy and had to be his own man.
Dubya ran an energy company and the Texas Rangers baseball team, with NO help from HW Bush.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1156955/posts
"Nedra Pickler" is an AP housename and is often used on articles slanted in favor of the far-left subculture. As detailed in their journal of record, the Village Voice, the moonbat left would really like to get rid of Kerry and nominate Howard Dean or even a Trotskyite outsider in his place as a precursor to disrupting the election entirely. Expect massive Chicago '68 style rioting at the Dem convention in an effort to force an open convention. All media-inspired blackshirt elements (Ruckus Society, ANSWER, etc.)are preparing for this.
You have any evidence for this, or are you living up to your name?
Or:
"I don't care if her a$$ gets as wide as Teddy's...I'll squeeze her Heinz-ness until something younger and richer comes along."
Why don't you open all your extra homes up for the homeless, Mr. Kerry?
The Dems would love to pull a bait and switch, but we're quite prepared to mock them as being unable to run our country if they can't even run their own convention.
The Internet, talk radio, and Fox news is/are burying the libs.
And .. when President Bush vacations, he sits in a cafe in Crawford and eats hamburgers with the locals; where the President does not consider it beneath him to associate with these people.
But .. Kerry only vactions with the rich and elite - proving once again he's a snob.
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