Geees. Teh, heh, I was hoping it was true.
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.
Whoops ! Looks like the PC parade doesn't like this pic w/my caption. My bad, I guess.
This is the photo I have been waiting for, I wondered when it would appear LMAO.
LOL
An NRA gun safety No-No!
But what would liberals know about the NRA other than that they are a bunch of right wing wackos?
"During the discussion of agricultural issues, the senator said he lived on a farm when he was very young. . . ."
Was this farm in Switzerland or France?
lol... great! Thanks!
I'm looking for an American Gothic ala Kerry .. bib overalls,, weed stalk in mouth (of her)
All the best for Independence Day...let our flags fly high! (Something that probably doesn't happen a whole lot on Beacon Hill)
Kerry's just like the rest of us ordinary guys,who happen to be married to billionaire heiresses.
I like the "I wear these Levis all the time in Boston, really" rumpled looked to his jeans....must be a bitch for his valet to give them that lived-in look.
Well for Pete's sake, do NOT tell GRAMPS that little ditty!!!
Looks like that farmer is aiming at a vulture instead of a clay pigeon.
She looks more like Marjorie Maine's part in Maw & Paw Kettle.
I found a link to the first version of the Reuters story here; and it is different...
The last three paragraphs of that earlier article read as follows:
"Let me tell you something," Kerry said during the discussion of agricultural issues. "In fact I lived on a farm when I was a young kid. My parents, when we lived in Massachusetts, we lived on a farm and I learned my first cuss word sitting on a tractor with the guy who was driving it."
A campaign aide said (my comment: the campaign aide's statement is probably in response to skeptical media types who had never heard that little gem from Kerry before, and questioned its basis in fact) that when Kerry's parents were abroad, he often spent vacations from his Swiss boarding school at his aunt and uncle's farm in northeastern Massachusetts.
"When I was twelve 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.
He's probably playing "Brother John" badly.
Pray for W and Our Incredible Troops
LIAR!!!!!!
I can't figure out if he's trying to sound like Al Gore or Bill Clinton
WHAT A LOSER
LOL! Okay, my lips are sealed.
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