Dem Mayor endorses Bush

St. Paul, Minnesota, Mayor Randy Kelly will be staying a Democrat, but doesn’t like his party’s choice for president of the United States.

"George Bush and I do not agree on a lot of issues," Kelly said in a statement. "But in turbulent times, what the American people need more than anything is continuity of government, even with some imperfect policies."

Kelly believes the economy is heading in the right direction and sees no reason to seek a change in presidents or to change the course the United States is currently on.

"There's no reason to believe a change of course will produce better or quicker results," Kelly said.

Kelly also believes that putting Sen. John Kerry in charge of Iraq would be a mistake and mean a longer more protracted engagement in Iraq.

Hollywood, oh, Hollywood

Paramount Pictures is releasing a film "Team America", set for release two weeks before the November presidential election, is entering post-production with "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

The film is not flattering to the Bush administrations. Imagine that. You can view the trailer at the following (link).

Anti-Kerry websites: links

Here is a website dedicated to gathering links on one site to all the anti-Kerry sites on the Internet. So far, there are 102... and it’s growing. CLICK HERE FOR LINKS

August battles

Traditionally August is the slow month in politics. This is always true during the Olympics and family vacations before school starts.

Not this cycle.

President Bush is planning to spend upward of $30 million on television advertising over the next four weeks. Democrats are looking to try to match Bush's effort with spending by independent Democratic committees not directly linked to the Kerry campaign.

Bush’s advertising is likely to highlight what Kerry failed to mention during the Democrat National Convention - his Senate record.

Mary Beth Cahill, said: "It's going to be an unusually contested month. What we're going to do is try to continue the momentum we have coming out of the convention."

"I think there's a public appetite for information, for finding out where people stand on issues," said Bush's campaign manager, Ken Mehlman. "I don't think there's an appetite for public name-calling. An appetite for information is different from an appetite for slogans and name-calling."

August is the month that Republicans have planned all along to take advantage of their opponent because of the lateness of their convention. By not taking public financing, both campaigns chose unlimited expenditures. This means that Bush can spend his war chest against Kerry and Kerry has to hold off on spending his $75 million in public financing until after the Republican Convention.

However, the Democrat National Committee and other 527 independent groups are looking to pick up the pace for Kerry.

Primary money not spent by the campaigns can be transferred to the respective national political parties for uncoordinated use on their behalf.

Kerry’s secret plan: troop reduction

Kerry offered his secret plan to change allies decisions not to send troops to Iraq, according to the Washington Post:

In interviews on television talk shows, the Democratic presidential nominee said that he saw no reason to send more troops to Iraq and that he would seek allied support to draw down U.S. forces there. "I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops," he said on ABC's "This Week."

Kerry accused President Bush of misleading the country before the war in Iraq, burning bridges with U.S. allies and having no plan to win peace. But when questioned about saying Thursday in his acceptance speech, "I know what we have to do in Iraq," he would not tip his hand.

"I've been involved in this for a long time, longer than George Bush," he said. "I've spent 20 years negotiating, working, fighting for different kinds of treaties and different relationships around the world. I know that as president there's huge leverage that will be available to me, enormous cards to play, and I'm not going to play them in public. I'm not going to play them before I'm president."

Kerry offered no reference to the fact that both France and Germany have the stated goal of reducing America’s power in the world. Nor, did he make any reference to the profits they made during Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror or to Russia’s providing Iran with nuclear technology.

It is still unclear how much Kerry would give away to bring France, Germany and Russia into Iraq.

[Here is a link to Kerry's plan, according to his campaign website: LINK]

Kerry-Edward’s new book

Senators John Kerry and John Edwards have a new book that is more than 250-page and offers a detailed description of the Democratic ticket's platform.

"We offer this plan because we believe this election should be about ideas to lift America up, not negative attacks that drag America down," Kerry and Edwards wrote.

The book contains excerpts from speeches and photos from the campaign trail and adds detail to the ideas Kerry has talked about in the months leading up to last week's convention, when he officially became the Democrats' choice for president.

The first chapter outlines Kerry's plans to stop terrorism and improve domestic security. He has said he would rebuild international alliances, modernize the American military and use American influence in military, diplomatic and cultural matters to promote peace.

Kerry also embraced recommendations by the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, including a national intelligence director to oversee the numerous government agencies that collect and decipher threat information.

The Bush campaign said the president has already acted on most of Kerry's ideas, detailing actions in 31 of 33 cases where Kerry has called for change.

Bush also asked Congress to increase homeland security spending 14 percent next year to add money for law enforcement, vaccines and other terror prevention and response programs. Most of the rest of the budget, except for defense, proposed little to no additional spending to limit growing budget deficits.

Heinz-Kerry

ABC’s The Note has a long article about Teresa Heinz Kerry and her abrasive manor. Check out the (link.)

Liberal press?

Political Points in the NY Times reports on the question of whether there is bias in the coverage of the presidential candidates.

When asked who would be a better president, the journalists from outside the Beltway picked Mr. Kerry 3 to 1, and the ones from Washington favored him 12 to 1. Those results jibe with previous surveys over the past two decades showing that journalists tend to be Democrats, especially the ones based in Washington. Some surveys have found that more than 80 percent of the Beltway press corps votes Democratic.

Kerry’s sister conflicted

A Catholic anti-abortion group sharply questioned the propriety of John F. Kerry's sister, Peggy Kerry, giving a speech to "a campaign crowd of feminists" in Boston and telling them that, if elected, her brother would overturn various Bush policies -- such as barring funds for U.N. population control efforts.

She "works for George W. Bush" as part of the U.S. mission to the United Nations.