Posted on 03/03/2004 5:14:46 PM PST by Indy Pendance
The Democratic Party chose a nominee Tuesday who probably cannot win the White House in November.
In opting for Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and turning down Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Democrats have broken from the pragmatism and moderation that dominated their party’s profile under Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the 1990s.
Their party has now moved back to the liberal extremism of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis that characterized the 1980s — with the same predictable result.
It is now up to President Bush to take advantage of this by implementing a three-part strategy in the coming campaign.
First, his paid media must attack Kerry’s voting record to define him as an ultraliberal. There are likely those in the White House who are urging Bush to run positive ads. That won’t work. Even if positive ads produce a small, short-term bounce for Bush, events soon will come to dominate, and the impact of those ads likely will evaporate.
But if Bush uses the next eight months to educate voters on Kerry’s opposition to the death penalty, his vote against the 1991 Iraq war, his poor attendance record in the past year and his opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, he could put this election away by defining Kerry right now.
Kerry has not been tested. He was nominated by running in the shadow of Howard Dean. Throughout the fall, all eyes were on the former Vermont governor. When he crashed and burned in late January, Kerry, as the liberal heir apparent, inherited his disappointed voters.
Meanwhile, Edwards never got the money or the momentum to run a decent race against Kerry because Gen. Wesley Clark — remember him? — crowded the field. By the time Edwards got Kerry one on one, the number of primary states stretched his resources to the point where he could not afford it.
But now, Kerry is a fair and inviting target. Bush has to zero in on him and push him to the left right now. Whether Kerry ever consorted with Jane Fonda is beside the point, but Kerry’s voting record is not.
Second, while his anti-Kerry ads are running, the president himself needs to make Americans understand that the war on terror is still atop our national agenda. He needs to elevate the sense of threat so that his advantage as a war president begins to count.
Kerry has also made a big mistake in backing the criminal-justice approach to terrorism, seeking to transform the war on terror into a series of DEA-style busts. Voters recognize that Bush is right when he says that this is a war against nation-states that sponsor terror, not a hunt for criminal bands in the mountains.
Pundits say that Kerry’s admirable war record makes national security irrelevant as a campaign issue. They couldn’t be more wrong. His efforts to defund the CIA and his opposition to the funding of the Iraq war are all key targets for Bush.
Some of those who have Bush’s ear may urge him to speak more about the economy and less about terror. This would be a big mistake. Bush must use his profile as president to make Americans understand how crucial staying the course in the war on terror is to our safety. Bush has lost a lot of support among women with the war in Iraq. But he can restore that support by stressing the need to make America safe from terror attacks and to stress how important it is to stick to this task.
Finally, Bush must begin to pull American troops out of Iraq after the handover in June. He should leave a sufficient number there, in safe, secluded bases, to intervene if the bad guys try to come back in power. But the daily drip of casualties must end.
President Johnson kept the troops in Vietnam and lost. President Nixon was withdrawing them, and he won.
If Bush’s ads and surrogates savage Kerry while the president raises the profile of the war on terror and his foreign-policy team brings the troops home, this race could be over long before either Bush or Kerry is officially designated as the standard bearers of his respective party.
Some tell me how such a clymer get so prominent?
Everybody had better get used to President Kerry
</sarcasm
A DemonRat wouldn't lift a finger to protect the country even if we started losing cities in nuclear fireballs and everybody had the pox. They'd sit in the ruins and blame the other party.
No! Just the appearance of moderation. Bill Clinton is the most leftwing president we've ever had. He let his unelected appointees force the most controversial aspects of the left's agenda.
One thing he had been stead fast on is his stance on the death penalty. He says he supports a moratorium on the death penalty at the federal level. Which means there would soon be a national moratorium on the death penalty, because of all the liberal social engineering judges and Supreme Court Justices he'd appoint.
He is OPPOSED to the death penalty for someone who would murder an American child, even a 5-year-old.
As the mother of a murdered 16 year old son, Jeremy Peter Flachbart, who was murdered by a sociopath wanting to see what it felt like to kill, I am APPALLED by this man who would be our president attitude toward crime victims.
He says HE FEELS MY PAIN.
BULL HOCKEY he can't feel my pain! He hasn't had a child brutally murdered. Only people who have lost a Loved One to homicide can begin to know the pain that comes from having a beloved child murdered.
There is a hole in my heart and in my life created by the brutal murder of my beloved child.
To me he is soft on crime just as dukakis who furloughed willie horton was.
His reasoning for opposing it is also faulty his stats are not accurate. Dudley Sharp with Justice For All can supply you with accurate stats if you need them. Dudley Sharp, Resource Director, Justice For All 713-935-9300
Sincerely,
In memory of Jeremy Peter Flachbart
Gail Keasling
KING: I've done a lot of shows recently dealing with the death of little children. A person who kills a 5-year-old should live?
KERRY: Larry, my instinct is to want to strangle that person with my own hands. I understand the instincts, I really do. I prosecuted people. I know what the feeling of the families is and everybody else.
But we have 111 people who have been now released from death row -- death row, let alone the rest of the prison system -- because of DNA evidence that showed they didn't commit the crime of which they were convicted.
After spending -- I myself worked to get a person out of jail who had been there for 15 years for a murder that person did not commit.
Now, our system has made mistakes, and it's been applied in a way that I think is wrong.
Secondly, I don't believe that, in the end, you advance the, sort of, level of your justice and the system of your civility as a nation -- and many other nations in the world, most of the other nations in the world, have adopted that idea, that the state should not engage in killing.
(APPLAUSE)
Because they have very bad memories of what happens when the state engages in killing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10722-2004Feb26_2.html
How true. Kerry is a dud who generated NO interest in the Dem primaries until Dean imploded.
He's had it easy since then because all the candidates focused their attacks on Bush. Kerry really has not been tested.
I believe he will be a much weaker candidate than expected.. but the Bush campaign MUST define him as the extreme liberal flip-flopping opportunist he really is.
I can't wait to see who Kerry picks, it's going to be fun imagining whoever it is going up against Cheney in the debates. :o)
I think this is the most important thing that will hurt Kerry. He didn't go through a tough campaign. He didn't have a major opponent after Dean cut his own throat. It would have been good practice in the general campaign to have had more of a fight in the primaries.
But I'm not a talking head on Fox News so what do I know?
Most of what Toesucker says, I take with a grain of salt, but I think he's right about this. It would help Dubya immeasurably for the voters to see an end in sight. I don't know if it's possible, necessarily, and I wouldn't support anything that puts our troops at greater risk, but I can't help but think it would help.
You mean Kerry's been AWOL from his Senate responsibilities? ;o)
If Kerry hasn't taken his responsibilities seriously as a Senator,we sure can't trust him in a more important position.
Q: Would you mind telling me who you voted for?
A: John Kerry.
Q: Why do you like Kerry?
A: Duh! I guess I don't know much about him, but the polls say he can beat Bush.
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