Free Republic

Cook was on Hardball and said he saw enough of an uptick in polling last night favoring Bush that it caught his attention. He said he wanted to see what happens in the next couple of days to see what to make of it...

With the Cheney Campaign, CBS News’ Josh Gross: The Vice President’s lesbian daughter was again the center of attention in the campaign for the presidency. Every few weeks, her sexual orientation is brought up by one of the candidates, usually in reference to President Bush’s proposal for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Continues...================================================================== The Afghan and Australian elections -- and How Kerry's Gay flap means he's toast Recall how the media last week predicted the elections were bound to be wracked by violence, voter intimidation and wholesale fraud, and complained that polling staff were too lightly trained, easily bribed,...

  Wed Oct 13,11:20 PM ET Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news - web sites) (L) and U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) talk on the stage after their final debate, at Arizona State University in Tempe, October 13, 2004. Bush and Kerry battled over health care, jobs and taxes in their final debate on Wednesday, with Bush criticizing Kerry's 'far-left' Senate record and Kerry arguing the middle class had lost ground under the president. REUTERS/Jim Bourg US ELECTION REUTERS     Last night's debate, with his daughters Kerry and T last night. A desperate fool...

CORAOPOLIS, Pa. Lynn Cheney says John Kerry's reference to her daughter in last night's debate was a "cheap and tawdry political trick." Kerry was asked by the moderator if homosexuality is a choice. He noted that Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter Mary is a lesbian. Kerry said Mary Cheney would probably say that she was born that way. Lynn Cheney says Kerry invaded her family's privacy. She says it gave her another chance to "assess" John Kerry, and she says it only reinforced her opinion that "This is not a good man." Cheney says she's "speaking as a mom, and...

Poll: Most Condemn Kerry Debate Comment A Tempest on the Mention of Vice President Cheney's Lesbian Daughter Analysis by GARY LANGER and DALIA SUSSMAN Oct. 15, 20004 -- - Most likely voters agree with what John Kerry said about homosexuality at Wednesday's presidential debate -- but not with the way he said it. Fifty-seven percent say being homosexual is the way people are, not the way they choose to be -- up from its level a decade ago. But likely voters by 2-1 also call it inappropriate for Kerry, when asked that question, to have noted that Vice President...

In a desperate attempt to win the White House, John Kerry and John Edwards have sunk to practicing the lowest form of politics — using the personal lives of the other candidates and their family members for political gain. Both John Kerry's and John Edwards's specific mention of the sexual orientation of Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter during the debates was a deliberate and calculated political attempt to suppress religious conservative voters from turning out to the polls for President George W. Bush. During last night's presidential debate, Senator Kerry said, "If you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter,...

An overwhelming majority of voters believe it was wrong for Democratic nominee John F. Kerry to have mentioned in Wednesday's presidential debate that Vice President Cheney's daughter was a lesbian, according to the latest Washington Post tracking survey. Nearly two in three likely voters -- 64 percent -- said Kerry's comment was "inappropriate," including more than four in 10 of his own supporters and half of all swing voters. A third -- 33 percent -- thought the remark was appropriate.

Does John Kerry really think the American people will believe that he singled out Mary Cheney because he "was trying to say something positive about the way strong families deal with this issue?" "We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as." --John Kerry, responding to Bob Schieffer's question,"Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?"in the third debate, October 13, 2004 "I said it in a very respectful way about their...

The head of the nation's largest gay and lesbian Republican group slammed fellow Republicans Friday for "feigning outrage" over comments by Sen. John Kerry, and called on President Bush to "stop attacking gay families on the campaign trail." Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, said Democratic presidential nominee Kerry was "not wise" to refer to the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney during the answer to a question about homosexuality during a presidential debate Wednesday night. (Special Report: America Votes 2004, the debates) But he said Republicans "who are expressing outrage at the debate comments really have...

A post-debate conversation with Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman revealed a determined and confident Republican team heading into the final weeks of the race. Mehlman shared his thoughts on the shape of the race and then gave updates on how he thinks the President is faring in a few key states. What was the effect of the Arizona debate? There was an immediate angry reaction to John Kerry's mention of Mary Cheney. "Americans saw a big clash of visions and a big clash in two kinds of people — one who's decent, the other one who's not. It says a...

Fri 15 Oct 2004 3:12pm (UK) Kerry's Lesbian Remark Sparks War of Words By Mark Sage, PA News, in New York The US presidential election sunk to a new low today as a public row over the sexuality of the vice president’s daughter rumbled on. During the third and final televised campaign debate this week, Democratic challenger John Kerry referred to Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter, Mary. But the comments drew fire from Mr Cheney and his wife Lynne, who accused Senator Kerry of a “cheap and tawdry political trick”. During the debate, in Tempe, Arizona, Mr Kerry and President George...

[excerpts] Coe said he might vote for a Republican president for the first time in his life. He's convinced that Kerry, if elected, would raise taxes on small-business owners like himself and leave the nation vulnerable to another terrorist attack. And while he called Bush "a flawed man and a flawed candidate," he said the president had at least established a track record in leading the nation. Restaurant worker June Worrell has always known she was going to vote, she just didn't know for whom — until after the third debate Wednesday. Now she's in the Bush camp. "The president...

An opinion poll released today suggested that President Bush may, after all, have won the last of the three televised debates with Democrat John Kerry, giving him a useful boost as the two candidates enter the final straight of the presidential race. Wednesday's debate in Tempe, Arizona, had been widely seen as a points-win for Mr Kerry, or at best a draw for the Republican incumbent, who had seen his poll ratings slide after a petulant performance in the opening head-to-head. The final debate focused on domestic issues rather than the Iraq conflict, and saw a more relaxed Mr Bush...

...Mary Beth Cahill... told Fox News in a post-debate interview that Ms. Cheney was "fair game." ...The distasteful practice of "outing" public figures has become popular in recent years as some gays seek personal and/or political affirmation by publicizing the private lives of politicians, business leaders, Hill staffers and so forth. Mr. and Mrs. Cheney have not kept their daughter's lesbianism a secret but neither have they shouted it to the sky. (In the days before the GOP Convention the Vice President mentioned it briefly at a campaign rally in Davenport, Iowa.) By outing Mary Cheney before millions of viewers...

SOMETHING ABOUT MARY 7:00 am packages or segments (not in the news blocks) about Iraq, debt, gas prices in the morning shows: 1/4 (part of a 2-way on NBC covered gas prices). NBC dedicated an entire Mary Matalin/Dee Dee Meyers/Katie Couric chat to Kerry's debate mention of Mary Cheney and the reaction to it preceded by the graphic "OVER THE LINE?" ABC opened its Begala/Carlson chat with the topic. (GMA's coverage was much more extensive yesterday.) CBS dedicated a package to it by Jim Acosta, who said that "for an experienced politician he seems to have made a rookie mistake"...

EDINA, Minn. -- Brian Foldery wanted specific plans from John F. Kerry in the third presidential debate, not another recitation of the things President Bush has done wrong. After 90 minutes Wednesday night, the 29-year-old insulation salesman was impressed. Kerry had some good detail, he thought, when he talked about what to do with the budget deficit. Still, something was missing. When Foldery listens to Kerry, somehow the Democratic nominee just never fully connects. There was that wisecrack about how he had "married up" to his heiress wife. Foldery thought it was "smug," not funny. And he cringed when Kerry...

WASHINGTON (Oct. 15) - Mary Cheney typically works quietly behind the scenes on her father's vice presidential campaign, but she was dragged front-and-center after John Kerry noted that she is a lesbian during his debate with President Bush. Her parents were furious at Kerry. But others who have publicly navigated the waters of politics and homosexuality say Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife may have overreacted to what Kerry called an attempt to compliment them on how they have dealt with having a lesbian daughter. The Cheneys went on the attack immediately after the debate, where Kerry had suggested...

A senior Bush administration advisor said Friday that John Kerry should apologize to Vice President Cheney and his wife Lynne for outing their daughter as "a lesbian" on national TV. "If he wants to get past [this controversy] as his campaign is saying he wants to, then he should just apologize and let's move on," Mary Matalin told NBC "Today Show" host Katie Couric. "[Kerry] was using Mary [Cheney] as a political football here," Matalin complained. "She's a behind the scenes person. She's not the poster girl for gay issues. She doesn't talk to the press. She's not public. ....

Wednesday night’s third and final presidential debate on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona was the site of one of the most despicable things I’ve seen in all the years I’ve observed politics. But given who was involved and the subsequent fallout, I’m not all that surprised. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry responded to a question asked by debate moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS news. Mr. Schieffer asked whether or not homosexuality was choice in the context of the same-sex marriage issue. Kerry replied: "We're all God's children, Bob, and I think if you were to talk...

Bush, Kerry Joined in Same-Sex Marriage PositionsOctober 15, 2004 by Roger F. Gay Family creates society and provides for the survival of mankind. Family policy and law may define the character of a nation and its humanity at a more fundamental level than any other feature. It would be paradoxical then for the two major candidates for president, who each define themselves as the best choice to lead the nation, obfuscate in response to questions about marriage and family. But that is exactly what they did during Wednesday night's debate on domestic policy. The moderator was not particularly helpful....