IPW Daily Report – Sat/Sun., February 21-22, 2004
Credibility
Yes, Nader is running again
Edwards’ limited campaign
Kerry continues to say War on Terrorism is Police
Action
C r e d i b i l i
t y
by Roger Wm. Hughes
Chairman, Iowa Presidential Watch
From Democrat National Committee Chairman Terry
McAuliffe and Senators John Edwards and John Kerry
to MoveOn.org's effort to censure the President,
everyone is singing out the same song in the choir
book: President George Bush is not credible.
McAuliffe, appearing on “Face the Nation,”
continued to say that President Bush’s credibility
is shot because he can’t prove he reported for
duty during his service in the National Guard --
despite witnesses, hundreds of pages of documents
and an honorable discharge. Like Senator Joe
McCarthy, McAuliffe failed to offer any proof of
his accusations that President Bush should be
criminally tried for being AWOL during time of
war.
On “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” both
John Kerry and John Edwards attacked President
Bush’s credibility, despite the facts being on
Bush’s side. Stephanopoulos brought up the issue
of Bush saying the economy is improving and both
Kerry and Edwards denied it. Stephanopoulos
brought up the fact that Bush said that as long as
he was President he would not ask for
permission-slips to protect this country -- a
reference to Kerry’s and Edwards’ call to make
concessions to France and Germany (countries who
both have publicly stated that the United States
needs to be embarrassed and brought down to their
size).
After viewing President Bush stating the fact that
the American economy is improving, Edwards said,
“What planet is he living on? He needs to get out
with the real people and find out what is really
going on.”
This from the person who wants to socialize the
American economy and make America return to the
age of Smoot-Hawley Protectionism, which created
the last Great Depression.
There is no doubt that there are fundamental
difficulties in the global economy, which is
undergoing a disruption as great as the
transformation from the Agrarian economy to the
Industrial economy. This disruption of the global
economy has American industry, business and
workers wondering what to do to safeguard their
future, but the demagoguery of Kerry and
especially of Edwards is nothing but harmful.
Unfortunately, Peggy Noonan is right. The Bush
campaign is doing a poor job.
In time-squeezed point/counterpoint TV interviews
Republicans show they are ill equipped to deal
with the Democrats’ assaults of lies and
deceptions delivered through ever-changing
premises and sound byte-speak. For a Republican to
stop and explain that their opponent Dem has just
changed not only the premise of his argument but
the syllogism as well, is to lose the audience and
the point.
Republican National Committee Chairman Ed
Gillespie was asked to explain the Bush ad that
showed Senator John Kerry was a hypocrite on
special interest. Gillespie relied on logic and
failed to make his point. He should have said:
“John Kerry’s is an example of a liberal Senator
from gay marriage Massachusetts who raped the
American people of their money by doing favors for
insurance companies that the GAO said should have
given the money back on the biggest pork barrel
project in American history, The Big Dig in
Boston.”
This exemplifies the Democrats’ strategy of
name-calling and providing so many targets that
the opposition doesn’t even know where to begin in
response -- something that was apparent in
Gillespie’s responses to DNC Chairman Terry
McAuliffe on Meet the Press.
As long as this kind of inexcusable,
incompetent, indefensible, losing campaign
continues to be mounted by the Bush campaign, the
President will continue to have his credibility
drop in the polls and become more vulnerable to
defeat by the Democrats.
This does not even include what those within the
Administration are doing that undermines the
President’s credibility -- like the President’s
Chief Economist saying “outsourcing is good”, and
the department's forecast that was put out saying
that 2.6 million jobs will be created… a number
that then had to be embarrassingly retracted.
Ralph Nader, in announcing on Meet the Press that
he will continue to take the drastic road of
trying to make this nation Socialist, went the
farthest in challenging the President’s
credibility. He said impeachment proceedings
should go forward on the President.
The good news is it is early, the good news is
Bush is the incumbent, and the good news is Bush
is right. Now, the Bush Campaign only has to get
their act together.
The bad news is the Bush supporters are sitting on
their gluteus maximuses and not doing anything to
support the President.
Email the Bush-Cheney Campaign now!
Tell them to get their act together.
They owe it to us.
Yes, Nader is running again
It came as no surprise today as Ralph Nader
declared his candidacy for President of the United
States – this time as an independent rather than
on the Green Party’s ticket. Nader appeared on
NBC’s Meet the Press with Tim Russert. Russert
took great care to first present the case of
“Nader the Spoiler” which exists in the minds of
many Democrats after the 2000 Gore-Bush matchup.
But Nader remain undentable in his convictions,
calling such opposition to his running for
president “contemptuous.”
Reactions to Nader’s decision were not all
positive, according to an Associated Press story:
Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe,
who personally urged Nader not to run, called the
decision "unfortunate."
"You know, he's had a whole distinguished career,
fighting for working families, and I would hate to
see part of his legacy being that he got us eight
years of George Bush," McAuliffe said on CBS's
"Face the Nation."
Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico minced no
words. "It's a total act of ego," he said.
Liberal Vermont Rep. Bernie Sanders, the only
independent in the House and a longtime Nader
friend, called Nader's decision
"counterproductive." Even the Green Party, whose
banner Nader carried four years ago, chose to
focus on its own priorities.
Kerry continues to say War on Terrorism is Police
Action
Democrat candidate John Kerry showed again today
why America would not be safe under his
presidential leadership. Appearing on ABC’s “This
Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Kerry repeated
his stance that the War on Terrorism is a
police action:
Stephanopoulous: But in the South Carolina
debate, you did say that the war on terror was
primarily an intelligence and law enforcement.
Kerry: It is primarily, George. Primarily.
Primarily means first. Secondarily means once you
know who they are, and where they are, and what
they're planning, you can go get them. …
Edwards’ limited campaign
Sen. John Edwards continues to run a limited
campaign with a limited strategy that has little
hope of being successful. The campaign, if
continued on this course, will be over after the
March 2nd races.
Edwards is campaigning in remote upstate NY where
communities have been hard hit due to the drain of
manufacturing jobs. Edwards has taken up former
candidate Rep. Dick Gephardt’s challenge to NAFTA
that Sen. John Kerry supported.
Gephardt used to criticize Edwards for voting to
improve trade status to China -- a country whose
trade policies have devastated the Carolina’s
millworks. Edwards was not a Senator when NAFTA
passed. So, he does not have a vote against NAFTA
to challenge Kerry’s favorable vote on NAFTA.
Gephardt, in a conference calls with reporters,
said that he didn’t see any difference in Edwards’
and Kerry’s position on trade. In fact, prior to
his departure form the race in Iowa he attacked
them equally for causing the loss of manufacturing
jobs.
Both Kerry and Edwards are making strident
populist pitches on tightening trade rules to
appeal to displaced workers who blame companies
for shipping jobs overseas. They both also want to
raise taxes on the wealthy in calling for class
warfare.
The Associated Press reports that Edwards has
said:
"We have been winning delegates in every primary,"
said Edwards. "This contest is about winning the
delegates necessary to win the nomination."
Edwards added that his campaign can continue even
if he loses all 10 states on March 2.
Edwards’ only hope seems to be if Kerry does
something to crash his campaign. However, the
greater threat could be Ralph Nader’s entry into
the Presidential contest.
Edwards has also begun campaigning to Blacks as
someone who knew firsthand racism in the South:
"I have, as many of you have, seen the ugliest
face of segregation and discrimination, young
African-American kids sent upstairs in movie
theaters, white-only signs on restaurants and
lunch counters," he said. "We have such an
enormous responsibility, I feel an enormous
personal responsibility."
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