Posted on 09/08/2004 5:13:20 PM PDT by Chi-townChief
To listen to the Republicans tell it, this election is about one thing and one thing only: Did John Kerry earn his medals in Vietnam or didn't he?
No, no, that's not right. It's about John Kerry's inability to stick with an opinion.
Nope, that's not it, either. It's about the liberation of the Iraqi people.
Or maybe it's just about staying the course, no matter how wrong the course might be.
Frankly, I'm not really sure. One thing I know, though: It's not about Osama bin Laden.
Gosh, no. He had little to do with last week's Republican Party love fest. There was lots of talk about bin Laden's handiwork: those missing twin towers, the airplane hijackings, the heroic firefighters and all that.
But bin Laden himself? Virtually nothing. It is interesting to note, however, that before the workers had finished sweeping the confetti off the convention floor, J. Cofer Black, the State Department's counterterrorism guy, told some folks in Pakistan that authorities are closing in on the No. 1 bad guy of the free world. Soon after, Pakistan said it's just politics, there is no news on the bin Laden front.
But that was all reported after the last balloon was popped. The venom spewing from Madison Square Garden during the Republican National Convention was reserved for a guy who really deserves it: the man who wants to take George W. Bush's job.
How far the New York City event was from the Boston meeting of the Democrats a month earlier. There, we heard about girlie things such as "hope."
None of that wimpy stuff in New York. There we talked of war and facing down the real enemy: anyone who questions Bush's decision to invade Iraq. (It seems to matter little now that he originally justified the invasion with suspect evidence that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction. It matters only that we are on a humanitarian mission to liberate the people.)
Meanwhile, Democratic contender John Kerry continues to flounder in a way that leads to despair for those of us who believe four more years of Bush are four too many.
The news on the Kerry front is that the country's most popular (if morally off-putting) Democrat, Bill Clinton, has been offering advice from his hospital bed. Kerry would do well to take a page from Clinton's campaign handbook. This effort to beat a Bush, like Clinton's 1992 campaign to beat the Bush before him, should be about the economy, stupid.
That famous phrase, written on the board of the Clinton campaign war room in 1992 -- "It's the economy, stupid" -- was designed to do two things that Kerry needs to do as well: It kept the candidate and the campaign focused and it hit the sitting president in his biggest vulnerability.
Bush uttered a sentence or two about the economy during his long-winded acceptance speech. A day later, the U.S. Labor Department announced that the nation's unemployment rate had fallen from 5.5 percent to 5.4 percent and that 144,000 new jobs had been created.
Pretty impressive, huh? Sure is. Until you compare the numbers with the promises.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the Bush administration promised the July 2003 tax cut -- its "Jobs and Growth Plan" -- would create 4,284,000 jobs in 14 months, an average of 306,000 new jobs each month.
In every previous episode of recession and job decline since 1939, the number of jobs had surpassed pre-recession levels within 31 months, researchers at the nonprofit think tank reported. It's been 41 months since this recession started (that was March 2001 -- six months before the terrorist attacks) and we're still 1 million jobs short.
The August increase of 144,000 jobs follows just 73,000 new jobs created in July. Meanwhile, according to the Census Bureau, 1.3 million more Americans -- one in eight -- now live in poverty, and 1.4 million more -- or 15.6 percent of the population -- lack health insurance.
It's not too late for Kerry to get this right. But it will be soon. So, here's the message: It's the economy, Kerry.
mailto:cindyrichards153@hotmail.com
God... These morons think that the war on terror is merely a manhunt. If this was only a manhunt, we need only call John Walsh.
"Where is Osama??" they bellow. If I were a gambling man, I would wager that he is under several million tons of rubble. The Dems need a scalp to hang on a pike, I guess. No greater use of military might other than to hunt for one single guy and let his acolytes and desciples run wild.
APf
Kerry needs Ross Perot to get him in the WH.
Since mainstream media deliberately refused to print the truth about clintoon and his sexual predator behavior, the press has proven it's hiding Botox Ketchupman's background. The liberal press' behavior is disgusting.
CHICAGOLAND PING
No, it's not. It's the struggle against worldwide terror.
On second thought even a Ross Perot won,t help the anointed one.
And a personality transplant sure wouldn't hurt either, boy how it wouldn't!
The only thing Clinton focused on was his Zipper!!
The world has gone nuts! A known traitor to this country is poised to become President and they are all trying to help him. What the heck is going on here?
Hey, Hey , Hey..he was the cum dress kid...cum back kid....come back.... ahhh forget it!
Kerry's a dead man walking.
***But private sector jobs don't include government jobs, it pointed out, and government jobs have continued to grow. Unemployment peaked at 6.4 percent under President Bush, which is about the average jobless rate over three decades. Now it's down to 5.4 percent.
If you count payroll jobs, you can accurately say the nation has lost about 1.2 million jobs. But that number doesn't include the people not on payrolls, such as the self-employed, business owners, farmers and many more.
The household survey counts all jobs. The survey shows 1.8 million more jobs were created since March 2001.*** Source
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