Free Republic

It'll never happen, but at some point over the next 48 hours or so, President Bush [related, bio] really ought to publicly acknowledge and thank the one group most responsible for making the Bush dynasty possible. Namely, the Massachusetts Democratic Party. Let's face it, without Michael Dukakis and John Kerry [related, bio], there wouldn't have been one, let alone three, Bush administrations. These two ACLU crybabies from the Bay State go down in history as the Laurel and Hardy of American politics, human sacrifices who to this day can't figure out why Americans didn't want to vote for Ivy League...

DES MOINES -- John Sasso, a senior adviser to John F. Kerry's presidential campaign, threatened to ban Fox News staff from the candidate's plane Friday night when Fox initially refused to apologize for a talk show host's comment that a new videotape showed Osama bin Laden with a Kerry button. ADVERTISEMENT Kerry advisers quickly backtracked, however, concluding that an escalating conflict with a major cable channel just days before the election would do nothing to help the Democratic nominee. Kerry senior adviser Mike McCurry spoke to Fox executives Friday and yesterday and was told that the Fox News host, Neil...

WASHINGTON — John Kerry has brought veteran political operative John Sasso into his campaign, the clearest sign yet that the Democratic nominee intends to take off the gloves against President Bush. Few Kerry advisers have the kind of bare-knuckle experience Sasso, who had been serving as general chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has gained from nearly a quarter-century in Boston politics. "He is the Democratic Lee Atwater," Brown University political science professor Darrell West said Tuesday, referring to the late GOP political operative who played a key role in the first President Bush's sharp-toned 1988 race against Michael Dukakis....

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, under pressure to bring new focus to his campaign, added a veteran political strategist to his travelling campaign entourage, rounding out changes to his senior staff. Democratic National Committee General Election Manager John Sasso will become the senior campaign staffer aboard the Kerry campaign plane, a key role in the final weeks leading up to the election as the campaign. Sasso's résumé includes a stint managing the failed 1988 presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis.[snip]These changes come on the heels of the addition of several former top Clinton administration staffers to the Kerry...

...........If Kerry wants to fight dirty against a Bush team that has gotten away with slinging mud across two presidencies, that's his choice. But no more whining, then, about the distortions of his military career. No more laments about how the media never focus on the issues. To choose Sasso is to choose the tactics Kerry claims to abhor. On the other hand, if Kerry decides at this critical juncture to change the subject from the past to the future, he need rely on no one but himself. Is he as outraged as most Americans about health insurance, the cost...

SUMMIT FEVER In a "surprise" drop by -- which, judging by the press-ready crew of interns who were waiting to greet him outside, was no surprise at all -- presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry showed up at DNC headquarters for a private meeting late Thursday with DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe and Kerry's shadow DNC chairman John Sasso. As casual as it may have been made to appear, the meeting was anything but. McAuliffe and Sasso have been warring almost constantly about the overall Democratic election-year strategy, as well as finance issues for the presidential campaign and the coordination...

The man tapped by Sen. John Kerry to enforce loyalty at the Democratic National Committee had to resign in disgrace from Michael Dukakis' 1988 presidential campaign, after revealing that then-Dukakis presidential rival Sen. Joe Biden was a plagiarist. John Sasso, who managed the failed Dukakis campaign, has been installed as Kerry's key man at the DNC, the New York Post reported Friday, in a bid to keep an eye on Clinton loyalist, DNC chair Terry McAuliffe. "[Sasso] is totally loyal to Kerry," the Post's source said. But what the Post didn't say was that the top Kerry aide was forced...