Kerry being French

It is said that the reason that the French planted large trees along their main boulevard into Paris is so the conquering armies could march in the shade. Kerry expressed a very French view of America’s invasion of Iraq on his campaign the other day, according to the NY Times. He expressed the fact that invading Iraq was the wrong thing to do:

"They were wrong and soldiers lost their lives because they were wrong," Mr. Kerry said as Mr. Edwards, in an adjacent seat in the front of their chartered Boeing 757 jet, nodded in agreement. "And America's paying billions of dollars because they were wrong. And allies are not with us because they were wrong."

Kerry’s adamancy against the war is somewhat blunted by the fact that both he and Edwards both voted to go to war in Iraq. Edwards supported the Kerry position:

Mr. Edwards said, "My view is that what George Bush has done in Iraq, both in the lead-up to the war and more importantly his planning for winning the peace, has cost America dearly, and cost the possibility of success dearly."

The finding of the Senate Intelligence Committee that the U.S. intelligence community did a failed job in supplying information concerning weapons of mass destruction and terrorist activity in Iraq has fueled Democrat charges against the Bush administration.

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt offered the following comments regarding Kerry and Edward’s pronouncements:

"Senator Kerry's position on the war has changed on an almost weekly basis," Mr. Schmidt said. "He voted for the war citing connections between Saddam Hussein and terrorists. Less than a year later he was an antiwar candidate.

"Senator Kerry has displayed a stunning lack of conviction and a stunning lack of decisiveness at turn regarding the war on terror," Mr. Schmidt continued. "It says a lot about John Kerry's priorities that he doesn't have time to receive his intelligence briefing about threats facing America but does have time to attend a Hollywood fund-raiser."

The military vote

Sen. John Kerry has failed miserably despite his ostentatious and outrageously blatant bid to call himself a "War Hero" to gain the military vote, according to a Democrat pollster as reported in the Washington Times:

"When we look at the veterans' vote and the military vote, it looks like it's going pretty solidly for the president," Democrat pollster Celinda Lake said.

The weight of this vote is enormous. It is the reason that Kerry brags about his military service.

"Among the electorate, 30 percent of households have at least one member on active duty or a veteran," Republican pollster Ed Goeas said. "These households tend to vote Republican by a six-point margin over Democrats."

The military vote is not proportional to the country. The typical Blue states where Democrats receive their support are not where the concentration of America’s military strength comes from. Many of these states where the military vote comes from are in battle ground states.

Another big difference is that the volunteer service attracts conservative philosophically minded individuals.

"If you are military now, you are more likely to be Republican and conservative than your civilian counterpart," said Peter D. Feaver, director of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies at Duke University. "If you are black and in the military, you are also more likely to be conservative and Republican than blacks not in the military."