|
 John
Kerry
 excerpts
from
the Iowa Daily Report
June
2003
The
Quad-City Times’ Kathie Obradovich reported
yesterday on Kerry’s Des Moines campaign
stop: “Saying it sometimes takes
veterans to remind Americans of their
obligation to those who have served their
country, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said
Friday he would push for improved access to
prescription drugs and expanded outreach and
disability benefits. Kerry…spoke
to about 30 veterans and others at a breakfast
at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9127. He
has been traveling with U. S. Rep. Leonard Boswell,
D-Iowa, a fellow Vietnam veteran. ‘Those
who have worn the uniform understand there was
a promise made to the country,’ said Kerry,
a Navy veteran decorated for valor. He
suggested that Republican President George W.
Bush’s priorities are elsewhere, saying that
235,000 veterans must wait more than six
months to access prescriptions from a Veterans
Administration doctor and more than
400,000 qualify for V. A. services that are
not getting them due to lack of outreach. Kerry
said he would change that, as well as make
sure that disabled veterans are allowed to
collect their full military pension without
having their disability payment deducted. ‘If
this country can afford to give people earning
$315,000 a tax break and if we can find the
money to build schools and hospitals and give
books and build roads in Iraq, we can make
certain that veterans in this country get to
the V. A. and get the benefits,’ he
said.” (6/1/2003)
From
Kerry’s DSM visit – the Des Moines
Register’s Beaumont reported that Kerry said
“the credibility of President Bush and U. S.
intelligence agencies will be diminished
significantly if weapons of mass destruction
are not found in Iraq. But Kerry, a
U. S. Senator from Massachusetts who supported
the war, said he and his rivals for the
2004 nomination who backed the president are
blameless should no evidence turn up.
‘Over time, if after all that is completed,
there aren’t any (weapons found), it’s
clearly a credibility issue with respect to
not just the administration, but the
intelligence community,’ Kerry said
during a campaign stop in Des Moines. Kerry
acknowledged the search is not complete,
but he also said he is not fully convinced
either the Bush administration or intelligence
agencies will be able to back up their claims
that Iraq possessed weapons.” (6/1/2003)
The
Washington Post today kicked off a series of
Dem wannabe profiles with the headline, “Hard-Line
Realist Seeking to Dream…Kerry’s
Ambition Is Wrapped in Complexity” The
Post said that the series will “examine all
nine Democratic presidential candidates: their
campaign messages, the roots of their
ambition, their ability to connect with
voters. On all three counts, Kerry is nuanced and often misconstrued.
What
makes him compelling as a person makes him
vulnerable to opponents who say he lacks
clarity as a candidate.
Kerry’s
complexity
has been an issue since his national debut in
1971. He became famous for a war within
himself. He had fought in Vietnam and came,
reluctantly, to believe the war was wrong. As
spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the
War, he testified before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee: ‘How
do you ask a man to be the last man to die for
a mistake?’
The
senators were awed by the young man’s poise
and by his Bronze Star, Silver Star and his
three Purple Hearts.
He
was a hero.
Complexity
worked the first time around.
It is much tougher now, as he presents himself
as both a dreamer and a realist, an old
liberal and a new Democrat, for the war in
Iraq and yet troubled by it. While other White
House hopefuls lined up for or against Iraq, Kerry
voted
for the war and then criticized the president
for failing at diplomacy. ‘It’s the
natural reluctance of a soldier to put young
Americans in harm’s way,’ said fellow
Vietnam veteran and former senator Max Clelend
(D-Ga.) But Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.),
one of Kerry’s
competitors,
accused him of being ‘ambivalent’ when the
country needed leadership. Republican strategist Richard Galen said, ‘People who were
disappointed by the Gore campaign sniff
another Gore coming because he doesn’t have
any clear message.’”
(6/1/2003)
The
Los Angeles Times reports that Henry Cisneros,
a former secretary of HUD under Bill
Clinton and a “popular figure in the
nation’s fast-growing Hispanic population,”
is backing Kerry’s presidential candidacy.
Cisneros, a former San Antonio mayor who now
runs a Texas-based venture (American City
Vista) to build homes in city centers, said he
would do what he could to promote Kerry’s
candidacy among Hispanics. Cisneros: “I
certainly plan to be active on the phone. I
also appear quite often in front of Latino
audiences. I’ll be available if Sen. Kerry
requests it.” (6/2/2003)
Under
the headline “Gephardt, Kerry Miss the
Most Hill Votes…Two Draw Focus of
Republicans Tallying Absences of White House
Hopefuls,” the Washington Post’s Juliet
Eilperin wrote that Gephardt is “hardly a
member of Congress anymore, at least if one
judges him by the 85 percent of House votes he
has missed this year. As House minority
leader between 1995 and 2002, Gephardt spent
most of his waking hours toiling in the
Capitol or traveling on behalf of fellow
Democrats, hoping to regain the congressional
majority his party lost in 1994. He held news
conferences, rounded up votes for major bills
and helped craft Democratic policy on issues
from technology to education. All that
changed last fall, when Gephardt decided to
seek his party’s presidential nomination.
He stepped down from leadership, announced
he would not seek reelection and hit the road
to raise dollars and woo primary voters in
Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
But he did not retire, choosing to keep his
seat until the end of next year. That has
attracted some political adversaries,
including the Republican National
Committee.” The report said the RNC has “focused
much of its attention” on Gephardt and Kerry,
who has skipped 37% of all recorded votes this
year. One more excerpt: “Only Rep. Dennis J.
Kucinich (D-Ohio), a long-shot
candidate, has maintained a perfect voting
record.”
The Washington Post account also was
headlined in The Union Leader online this
morning: “Democrats draw fire for missing
votes” (6/2/2003)
Chicago
Sun-Times staff reporter Cathleen Falsani
reported that Kerry
“courted
the gay and lesbian vote at a fund-raiser in
Chicago Saturday night, promising a more
benevolent government where civil rights are
extended without exception to all Americans.
‘I make you this pledge: If
I have the honor on Jan. 20, 2005, to take
that oath and to swear to uphold the
Constitution and principles of this nation, I
will be a president for all Americans,’
Kerry told
the black-tie crowd at the annual Human Rights
Campaign’s event, One Swanky Supper, at the
Sheraton Hotel & Towers. ‘I am running
for president because the
Supreme Court of the United States is at
stake, and we need a president who will stand
up for civil rights, equal rights, a woman’s
right to choose, and, when I am president,
there will be no John Ashcroft treading on the
Bill of Rights,’
said the senator, who also promised to extend
health insurance benefits to same-sex partners
of federal employees. ‘There was a time when
many of our nation’s leaders would have
preferred that gays and lesbians stay in the
closet and stay out of the way. Sadly,
for some of our leaders, that time is still
now.
But I am running because I believe in my gut
and in my heart that that time must
end.’” (6/2/2003)
In New
Hampshire yesterday, Kerry said the
administration is “out to stop organized
labor.” Coverage in this morning’s The Union
Leader of Kerry’s speech in North
Conway reported “he rallied a trade convention
Monday by slamming President Bush and
repeating his call for a ‘payroll-tax
holiday.’ The Massachusetts senator said the
saved taxes would help the average worker
immediately. He also called for more
investment in infrastructure, training and
other programs to restore the 2.5 million jobs
he said have been lost during Bush’s
presidency.” Kerry made the
comments at the 59th annual Eastern
Seaboard Apprenticeship Conference, a meeting
for apprentice carpenters, plumbers,
electricians and other tradespeople from
eastern states. (6/3/2003)
Leftover from
last week – headline on “Washington Whispers”
column: “Attacks on
Heinz Kerry may unlock ketchup cash”
Columnist Paul Bedard wrote in U.S. News &
World Report: “Uh-oh, now they’ve done it.
Critics of Teresa Heinz
Kerry’s unorthodox and outspoken
views have the famously rich wife of
Democratic presidential candidate John
Kerry reaching for her $550 million can of
whup-ass. Originally reserved to counter
GOP sniping at her hubby, Heinz Kerry is
now open to spending some of her ketchup
fortune on a counterattack. ‘The
assumption,’ says a friend, ‘was always that
the attacks would be on him, not her.’ But
now, ‘The attacks on her have exponentially
increased the likelihood of her tapping the
fortune.” Heinz Kerry, previously
married to ketchup heir Sen. John Heinz, who
died in a plane crash, has been ridiculed by
Republicans for recent statements promoting
Botox treatments, prenuptial agreements, and
feeding rabbits to kids.” (6/4/2003)
The Boston Herald – under the headline, “Candidate
Kerry barred from most of his wife’s funds”
-- reported that aides to Kerry
yesterday “confirmed he will not be able to
tap the bulk of his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry’s
$550 million family fortune for his 2004 White
House bid. ‘This is something we have known
all along,’ said Kerry spokesman
Robert Gibbs. ‘There’s no change in our
position…It’s just what the law says.’ It is
not widely known that under federal campaign
law, only assets Heinz Kerry owns jointly with
her husband can be used for his presidential
campaign. Despite the law, the Kerry camp
believes it could tap substantial personal
funds if it needed to during the White House
race. The couple’s latest federal
financial disclosure documents show Heinz
Kerry with sole control of the vast majority
of her family fortune. Kerry reported
assets between $700,000 and $2.4 million,
including artwork and joint accounts. Kerry
(D-Mass.) and his wife are co-owners of their
$7 million Beacon Hill townhouse.”(6/5/2003)
Most news
organizations skipped standard coverage of
the “Take Back America” conference held in
DC late last week – in favor of general
stories about the growing divisions within
the Dem Party. Only a handful included
actual coverage (and quotes) by the Dem
wannabes, but Iowa Pres Watch has compiled
some of the coverage – and comments – from
the latest anti-GWB rally. Some of the
coverage and the wannabe’s comments:
KERRY
“brought the crowd to its feet by
criticizing Bush’s domestic agenda. He
blamed Bush for a failure of diplomacy but
went on to stress that Democrats must be
a party of national security as well as
domestic security…”He called for a
‘tough-minded strategy of international
engagement.’”…”If Democrats are not
prepared to make America safer, stronger and
more secure, for all we care about all those
other issues, we will not win back the White
House and we don’t deserve to.”
(6/8/2003)
… Under the
headline “Kerry tells NH supporters he’d
fighting Bush’s ‘$200 million,’ the
New Hampshire Sunday News reported on a
Kerry visit to Hampton: “President
George W. Bush may have the money but John
Kerry says he’s got something better. The
Massachusetts senator, on a campaign stump in
New Hampshire yesterday, told a packed house
of supporters that he intends to build the
strongest grassroots effort the country has
ever seen to help him win his bid for the
Presidency. ‘We have to fight against
their $200 million…They have their money, but
we have something else.’ Kerry was
referring to the estimated $220 million Bush
is expected to raise for his reelection
campaign. Playing off the recent suspension
of Chicago Cubs’ homerun hitter Sammy Sosa,
Kerry likened the slugger’s use of a corked
bat to Bush’s economics, saying, ‘When it
turns out to be fake, you can only get away
with using it for so long.’ Citing his 18
years in the U. S. Senate, Kerry asked
that he be measured by the battles he has
chosen to fight there, including blowing the
whistle on Oliver North and moving toward a
new relationship with Vietnam. The veteran
senator explained his bid for the White House
was aimed at ‘putting the country back on
track’ and taking the country ‘where it needs
to go.’” Reporting on the same event, the AP’s
Stephen Frothingham wrote that Kerry
“called Bush’s policies ‘radical” and said
they disappoint even conservative Republicans.
‘Conservative Republicans do not create
massive federal deficits. Conservative
Republicans do not turn their backs on civil
rights.” (6/9/2003)
… New England
news media reports – headline from Boston
Herald: “Poll shows Kerry, Dean leading in
New Hampshire” -- this morning: Kerry
continues to lead over Dean in New Hampshire –
but it’s still close. The latest Zogby
poll, released yesterday, showed Kerry at 25%
with Dean at 22% -- basically within the
margin of error for the poll of 600 likely
voters taken 6/4-7. The results are
similar to other recent NH surveys, which also
have shown Kerry with a slight lead, but
previous polls usually had Gephardt and
Lieberman holding steady in the teens.
In the Zogby poll, Lieberman was at 10%
while Gephardt had 7%. The rest of the Dem
field: Edwards and Kucinich at 2%
and the others – Graham, Moseley Braun
and Sharpton – were all at 1% or
less. Two interesting revelations:
About one-fourth – 27% -- said they are
undecided and about one-third of those
surveyed said they are not familiar with
Dean while only about 10% said they are
unfamiliar with Kerry. Translated: That
means 90% know Kerry and he got 25% in the
poll, while about 65% know Dean and he
received 22% support in the poll.
(6/9/2003)
…
Ethanol politics. In his Chicago
Sun-Times column – under the headline “Ethanol
abstainers” – yesterday, Robert Novak
reported: “The only four senators who
abstained from Tuesday’s 62-34 vote supporting
mandatory use of ethanol are the four
senators seeking the Democratic nomination.
Three have abandoned previous positions
opposing government mandates for the
corn-based gasoline additive. Senators Joe
Lieberman, John Kerry and Bob
Graham in 1994 voted to kill a Clinton
administration regulation requiring more
ethanol use, but now they want to force
increased use, and they cast other pro-ethanol
votes on the energy bill last week. The
fourth senatorial candidate for president,
John Edwards, was not yet a senator in
1994 and says he always has back ethanol.
Ethanol is important in corn-growing Iowa,
first on the presidential selection circuit.”(6/9/2003)
… The Boston
Herald reported yesterday that Kerry
was in his home state – for a Dem rally in
Lowell – over the weekend. Headline: “Sen.
Kerry fires up the party faithful”
Excerpts from coverage by Steve Marantz:
“Presidential hopeful John Kerry roused
Democratic activists yesterday with a vow that
he will not lead ‘a second Republican Party’
into the 2004 election. Kerry, the
junior senator from Massachusetts, drew
sharp distinctions between himself and
President Bush in a speech that ran past 20
minutes, touching on education, health care,
environment and economic recovery.
‘This is not a normal contest of Democrats
versus Republicans,’ Kerry said. ‘This is a
contest between common-sense American values
and extreme ideologies.’…The next election
is nothing less than a battle for the Supreme
Court, Kerry said, with the Republican
right targeting abortion rights. ‘They want
to criminalize the right of women to choose,’
he said…He noted that Bush cast himself as a
friend of police officers and firefighters in
the wake of the Sept, 11, 2001, attacks, even
though public safety personnel, as members of
organized labor, are losing jobs due to Bush’s
policies. ‘We should not be opening
firehouses in Baghdad and shutting then in New
York City,’ Kerry said.”
(6/9/2003)
…
What do John Kerry and a Gilligan’s
Island character have in common? In his
“Washington Whispers” column in this week’s U.
S. News & World Report, Paul Bedard writes: “Have
you even found yourself wondering if
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John
Kerry is really Thurston Howell III, the
Gilligan’s Island millionaire? No?
Well, you will soon if Republican
strategists follow through with their
prankster plans for the 2004 presidential
race. ‘We’ll gig ‘em whenever and wherever we
can,’ says one source. The idea is simple.
Send an ‘attack mascot’ to primary and caucus
appearances of leading Democratic White House
hopefuls to heckle and unnerve the candidates.
Initial plans by GOP strategists focus on
Kerry, Rep. Dick Gephardt, Sen.
John Edwards, and Sen. Joe Lieberman.
Just this weekend, Edwards will be met
in his home state with a Welcome Wagon,
a dig at how much time he has been away
campaigning. The most original is the Kerry
gag mascot: somebody dressed as Howell,
the lock-jawed dim bulb who inherited his
wealth. In his straw hat; a $150 price
tag to represent his barber’s fee.
Suggests Kerry spokesman David Wade,
the GOP ‘should lay off the Gilligan’s
Island imagery before we cast George W.
Bush as gilligan in the remake.’”
(6/10/2003)
… The Boston
Herald’s Noelle Straub reports from Des
Moines: Headline – “Gephardt, Kerry,
Dean tops in Iowa” Excerpt – “With less
than eight months to go before the
first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, three
Democratic presidential hopefuls appear to
have jockeyed themselves into position as
early favorites there. While the battle for
Iowa’s Democratic activists remains up for
grabs, Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) seems
to have emerged as a front-runner, along with
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and former
Vermont Gov. Howard Dean…Dennis
Goldford, chairman of the department of
politics and international relations at Drake
University in Des Moines, also rated
the three front-runners, saying they have the
most active campaigns. He placed Lieberman
and Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) in the
second tier. Despite the early attention by
political insiders and the media, Goldford
said the race is ‘below the radar screen’ for
most Iowans. ‘It’s very early in terms of
the public,’ he said. ‘I think what’s
happening now is the pre-campaign. Candidates
are trying to line up the activists who will
encourage friends and neighbors to turn out
for the caucuses.’…Looking to boost his
chances, Kerry recently hired 10 full-time
paid staff in Iowa, for a total of 18 in the
state. ‘Given the limited number of days he’s
[Kerry] been here this year, I’m very pleased
with the number of supporters we’re collecting,’
John Norris, Kerry’s Iowa state
director. Sarah Leonard, Dean’s
communication director, noted his staff was
the first to visit all 99 Iowa counties. ‘This
campaign is a marathon and not a spring,’ she
said. Compared to Kerry and Dean’s larger
staff, Lieberman has four campaign workers in
Iowa. ‘Lieberman’s campaign got off to a later
start, but we’re catching up,’ said Ted
Osthelder, Lieberman’s state director.”
(6/11/2003)
… In
yesterday’s Boston Globe, the headline said it
all: “Doubt cast on Kerry’s ‘PAC-free’
claim…Senate history conflicts with the
candidate’s statements” Globe staffer Glen
Johnson wrote: “As a presidential
candidate, John F. Kerry has repeatedly railed
against the corruptive influence of
special-interest money in politics, and has
proudly declared on various occasions that he
is the only or first person elected to the US
Senate three times without taking campaign
contributions from political action committees.
Kerry’s campaign website makes a
slightly different claim, stating that the
Massachusetts Democrat joined the Senate in
1984 after ‘running the nation’s first
successful PAC-free Senate race.’ But the
public record shows that Kerry was neither the
first nor the only senator elected three times
without money from political action
committees. It also shows he was not the first
ever to run a ‘PAC-free’ race for the Senate.
David L. Boren appears to be the first person
elected three times to the Senate without PAC
money, in 1978, 1984 and 1990…’I did not take
PAC money in any of the three races,’ Boren,
now president of the University of Oklahoma,
said yesterday in a telephone interview.
Warren B. Rudman of New Hampshire was elected
to the US Senate in 1980 without taking PAC
money – four years before Kerry did it.
‘I steadfastly refused to take it, and I
remember [in 1984] when John made that pledge,
and I just thought to myself that he was doing
a great thing,’ Rudman, now a Washington
attorney, said in a telephone interview.”
(6/13/2003)
… Report from
yesterday’s Madison (Wis.) Capital Times –
headline, “Democrat stars come out…State
convention draws Kerry, Dean” – includes
an account of Kerry’s Harley ride in
Milwaukee. Aaron Nathans reports: “It
wasn’t George W. Bush’s ‘top gun’ landing on
an aircraft carrier, but U. S. Sen. John
Kerry’s Harley ride along Lake Michigan had
the Democratic presidential candidate looking
like ‘the Terminator.’ After giving a
speech before a few dozen veterans, Kerry,
of Massachusetts, stepped onto a borrowed
black and chrome Harley. ‘It’s cool out here,
I’m going to put a jacket on,’ Kerry
said, finding a good excuse on the
generally warm day to zip up his leather
bomber jacket. He donned shades, and
chatted with a campaign advance man who
shouted ‘Go!’ His caravan was preceded by
a top-down convertible with a camera crew.
Contrast that scene with the arrival of Howard
Dean, the former Vermont governor who is one
of Kerry’s rivals for the presidential
nomination. Dean waded into a sea
of several hundred supporters as a stereo
blared the Elvis remix of ‘A Little Less
Conversation.’ Stepping up to the podium,
Dean gave a rousing speech touching on the
price of U. S. imperialism and Republican tax
cuts. ‘You have the power to take this
country back!’ he shouted several times,
before grabbing the American flag behind him,
pole and all, and holding it behind his head.
‘This flag belongs to everyone,’ Dean
said. He and Kerry were the two
front-running candidates who paid a visit to
the Democratic State Convention Friday.
Also, there were fellow candidates Dennis
Kucinich and Al Sharpton, as well as all
of the state’s top Democrats except U. S. Sen.
Herb Kohl.” (6/15/2003)
… On
Wisconsin…Dem hopefuls, convention delegates
share new experience in Milwaukee. The
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Steve Walters – a
former IA political reporter – reports in
yesterday’s edition about the Dem state
convention. Excerpts: “Introducing
themselves to Wisconsin Democrats adjusting to
their new role of helping to pick their
party’s candidate against President Bush,
three Democratic presidential hopefuls railed
Friday against Bush’s foreign and domestic
policies… Kerry said
Bush pushed for and signed into law a tax cut
that gives 54% of the cuts to 1% of the
richest American taxpayers. He said Bush
will be defeated only by a national ‘sense of
outrage’ next year. ‘This is a contrast
between common sense and basic American values
and extreme ideologues,’ Kerry
said. ‘The difference has never been more
compelling.’…(6/15/2003)
… Headline
from yesterday’s Boston Herald says that “Kerry
in Senate’s millionaire Club.” The
Herald’s Noelle Straub wrote that Kerry
“ranks as just one of many millionaires in the
U. S. Senate – several of whom are running for
president.” More from Straub’s report: “Kerry
listed a Senate income of $150,000 plus
four trusts worth between $400,000 and $1.75
million. He inherited three of those from his
mother, Rosemary Kerry, who passed away last
year. The reports only require wide ranges
rather that exact values of assets, so
senators’ total fortunes can only be
estimated. Kerry’s report also listed a
Dutch painting worth between $250,000 and
$500,000 that he owns jointly with his wife,
Teresa Heinz Kerry. Her assets were
listed as at least $210 million. A study
by the Center for Public Integrity estimated
Kerry’s and his wife’s total fortunes
at $198 million to $839 million. The study
shows that out of the 933 assets Kerry
lists on disclosure reports, he owns 87, his
wife owns 844 and the couple hold two jointly.
That means Kerry could use only $6.8
million of the assets for his presidential
campaign. Heinz Kerry could, however, use her
money for independent ‘issue ads’ that do not
directly mention Kerry by
name.”(6/15/2003)
… Headline
from this morning’s The Union Leader: “After
third Purple Heart, Kerry asked out of Vietnam.”
The UL carried AP’s coverage of a report based
on the first installment in a seven-part
Boston Globe series about Kerry’s
adventures – and misadventures – that brought
him to his current presidential candidacy.
Excerpt from AP report on yesterday’s first
installment: “John Kerry, who was wounded
three times during his time in Vietnam, asked
for and received reassignment that allowed him
to leave the combat zone in April 1969, six
months before his second tour of duty was
scheduled to end, according to a published
report. Commodore Charles F. Horne,
commander of the coastal squadron in which
Kerry served, said recipients of three
Purple Hearts could make such a request under
then-existing naval rules and it was ‘above
board and proper.’ Transfer was not automatic
and was subject to approval by the Bureau of
Naval Personnel, he said. “I never once in
any way thought my decision was wrong,’
Horne told The Boston Globe, which examined
recently declassified Naval documents and
conducted interviews with Kerry’s
former crew members and commanders for a
seven-part series on the U. S. senator and
Democratic presidential candidate. Kerry
requested the transfer just days after a March
13, 1969 incident for which he was awarded a
Bronze Star. Kerry, while under fire, rescued
a Green Beret who had fallen overboard. Kerry
had been wounded just moments earlier when a
mine detonated near his ‘swift boat,’ the
small vessels that made forays into the Mekong
River delta.”
(6/16/2003)
… The Boston
Globe – headline, “Show him the money:
Kerry’s foes seen gaining ground” –
reported yesterday that “Kerry,
scrambling to reclaim the Democratic
presidential fund-raising lead, hauled in
$300,000 at four Boston events last week. The
series of Hub money events Friday were part of
an aggressive national fund-raising push by
the Massachusetts senator as the June 30 close
to second-quarter campaign reporting nears.
Kerry hopes a strong showing can help him
vault back to the front of the Democratic pack
after he has slipped slightly behind in recent
months. To stroke his fundraising machine
for the deadline sprint, Kerry treated
110 major donors who had raised at least
$25,000 each for his campaign to a special
one-day retreat in April.” Excerpts from
Andrew Miga’s report: “Kerry has
successfully mined California’s Silicon
Valley, where venture capitalist Mark
Gorenberg raised an eye-popping $900,000 for
the senator’s campaign at a single event, a
March 13 dinner in San Francisco’s Palace
Hotel…The Kerry camp was stunned in
March when rival Sen. John Edwards (D-N. C.)
edged him in the first-quarter fund-raising
race with a surprise showing of $7.4 million,
much of them from trial lawyers. ‘It was a
shock-and-awe moment for us,’ admitted one
Kerry adviser. Kerry, assumed by
insiders to be the early money heavyweight of
the nine-candidate field of Democrats, raised
a relatively healthy $7.1 million, but
Edwards’ performance dented Kerry’s standing
as an early front-runner…There are also
concerns in the Kerry and Edwards camps that
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), seeking to
rebound from a poor fund-raising start, could
make a surprise showing. Lieberman
possesses a broad national donor network from
his 2000 vice presidential race. Another wild
card is U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt
(D-Mo.), who also has built a strong national
donor base as House Democratic leader over the
years. A party source said Gephardt has
pressed hard recently to boost his totals,
seeking to forge a breakthrough.”
(6/17/2003)
… Des
Moines talk show host – and former GOP U. S.
Senate aspirant – Bill Salier said yesterday
“the party of the rich has been redefined” by
the fact that three of the four
senator-wannabes (Kerry, Graham, Edwards) were
identified as millionaires in recently
released personal finance disclosure
statements. On his KWKY program yesterday,
Salier also noted that IA GOP Sen. Grassley
made the Senate millionaires list – barely by
a few thousand dollars. That, Salier said,
made Grassley “the poorest of the
Senate millionaires.”(6/17/2003)
… Excerpt
from the second installment of the Boston
Globe’s seven-part series – “John F.
Kerry/Candidate In the Making” – “Kerry,
asked whether he is certain a rule enabled him
to leave Vietnam after three Purple Hearts,
responded: ‘Yep. Three and you’re out.’
For the past several weeks, Kerry’s
staff said it has been unable to come up with
a Navy document to explain that assertion. On
Friday, however, the National Archives
provided the Globe with a Navy ‘instruction’
that formed the basis for Kerry’s
request [to be released from combat duty]…The
Navy could not say how many other officers and
sailors got a similar early release from
combat, but it was unusual for anyone to have
three Purple Hearts. Kerry’s early
departure meant he was leaving behind a crew
that had suffered through many bloody battles
with him. Worried that crew members would
be killed, he arranged for them to receive a
safer assignment… Then, at the beginning of
April 1969, Kerry left Vietnam. ‘I
thought it was time to tell the story of what
was happening over there,’ Kerry said. ‘I was
angry about what happened over there, I
clearly concluded how wrong it was.’ By
this time, five of Kerry’s closest friends
had died in combat [including Yale classmate
Richard Pershing and Donald Droz – “a fellow
skipper who had provided support for Kerry on
the day he won the Silver Star”] …The
mounting losses made no sense to Kerry.
The boats went up a river, showed the US flag,
perhaps killed some enemy, and returned to
base without taking any territory. Six
months earlier, Kerry had been a gung-ho
skipper eager to lead his men and be a hero.
Now he felt the mission had changed. He
replaced his dream of a life in politics with
a path of protest.” (6/17/2003)
… Kerry
moves from antiwar protestor to Congressional
candidate. The Boston Globe yesterday
published Installment Three of the Kerry
saga – from Vietnam to the Iowa caucuses. Our
lead character has now moved from leaving
Vietnam after receiving three Purple Hearts
and has become an anti-war activist. Today’s
Globe story started with a 4/28/71 phone
conversation between President Nixon and his
counsel, Charles Colson about Kerry’s
protests. Colson tells Nixon that Kerry is
“really quite a phony…He was in Vietnam a
total of four months” – but does not
mention Kerry’s three Purple Hearts,
Silver Star and Bronze Star. An excerpt from
later in yesterday’s episode: “Scott Camil, a
former group leader [in Vietnam Veterans
Against the War], said Kerry ‘was
not as radical as
some of the rest
of us. He was a pretty straight
shooter, and he came under criticism for
things that weren't fair.’ Still, Camil
recalled that Kerry's patrician image
was derided by others in the group, which was
mostly composed of working-class veterans.
Camil said Kerry showed up in ironed clothes,
while most of the others were rumpled. Camil
said a member had tried to reach Kerry by
telephone and was told by someone, presumably
a maid, that ‘Master Kerry is not at home.’ At
the next meeting, someone hung a sign on
Kerry's chair that said: ‘Free the Kerry
Maid.’ Kerry left the organization after
about a year of participation and about five
months after assuming a leadership role.
Kerry says he quit partly to focus on a
new organization that emphasized veterans'
benefits; others say Kerry
was forced out. In fact,
Kerry once again was thinking of
running for the US House from Massachusetts.
But unlike in 1970, when Kerry was
barely known, the antiwar movement had turned
him into a national figure and taught him how
to campaign, how to organize, how to raise
money, how to use the media, even how to
debate on national television. Kerry had
battled the Viet Cong, the Nixon White House,
and the extremes of the antiwar movement. Now
all he had to do was persuade mostly
working-class voters north of Boston to vote
for him.”(6/18/2003)
… “Kerry
says Bush misled Americans on war” –
headline
from today’s Boston Globe online. Coverage of
Kerry’s
appearance
yesterday in Lebanon, NH, by AP political ace
Ron Fournier: “Democratic
presidential candidate John Kerry said
Wednesday that President Bush broke his
promise to build an international coalition
against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and then waged a
war on questionable intelligence.
‘He
misled every one of us,’
Kerry
said. ‘That’s
one reason why I’m running to be president of
the United States.’
Kerry
said Bush
made his case for war based on
at least two
pieces of U. S. intelligence that now appear
to be wrong:
that Iraq sought nuclear material from Africa
and that Saddam’s government had aerial
weapons capable of attacking the United States
with biological material. Still,
Kerry
said it is
too early to conclude whether the war was
justified. There needs to be a congressional
investigation into U. S. intelligence on Iraq,
he said. ‘I
will not let him off the hook throughout this
campaign with respect to America’s credibility
and credibility to me because if he lied he
lied to me personally,’
he said.” (6/19/2003)
…
Kerry finds energy dilemma in own backyard
– of his Nantucket retreat. Online
headline from The Hill in DC: “Wind farm is
an issue for Kerry” Report by Sam Dealey:
“A renewed plea by presidential hopeful John
Kerry (D-Mass.) to redouble efforts at
using renewable energy has elicited
criticism that the senator has failed to push
adequately for such innovations in his own
backyard. Speaking in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa, last Friday, Kerry
called for a ‘new Manhattan Project’ to
decrease the nation’s dependence on foreign
energy sources and go easier on Mother Nature.
‘We can generate more and more of our
electricity from wind, the sun, forest and
farm products,’ Kerry said. ‘I believe
we can and should produce 20 percent of all
our electricity from renewable sources by
2020. Twenty by 2020 — now that’s a clear
vision for America.’ It turns out, however,
that it’s not such a clear vision for all.
A huge proposed wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal,
seven miles off Nantucket Island, has met with
fierce resistance, including from some of
Kerry’s well-connected constituents and
neighbors, who look askance at the idea of
peering at a 130 whirling turbines from their
luxurious vacation retreats. Some residents
in nearby Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard,
replete with well-heeled castaways and summer
vacationers, say the wind farm would mar the
view of the sound. Kelly Benander, a
spokeswoman for Kerry’s presidential
campaign, said the senator is ‘waiting to hear
about the results from the environmental
impact statement.’ She said he would announce
his decision when he sees the results.
Benander declined to say whether Kerry
would endorse the plan if the environmental
impact studies turn out favorably for the
massive project, known as Cape Wind. Vocal
opponents are not waiting for such results.
They include retired CBS anchorman Walter
Cronkite, who has a home in Martha’s Vineyard,
and members of the Kennedy family. A
number of roadblocks have been thrown up to
try to delay the project or ban it outright.”
(6/19/2003)
… Under the
subhead “Vote for me, I’m a Chump!,”
James Taranto in his “Best of the Web” column
yesterday on OpinionJournal.com
wrote: “’Democratic presidential
candidate John Kerry said Wednesday
that President Bush broke his promise to build
an international coalition against Iraq’s
Saddam Hussein and then waged a war based on
questionable intelligence,’ the Associated
Press reports from Lebanon, N. H. where the
haughty, French-looking Massachusetts
Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam,
was campaigning for next year’s primary:
‘He misled every one of us,’ Kerry
said, ‘That’s one reason I’m running to be
president of the United States.’ Well,
actually, ‘every one’ overstates the case. The
Senate vote in favor of authorizing force in
Iraq was 77-23, with Kerry voting ‘yes.’ For
the sake of argument, let’s say Kerry is right
and Bush perpetuated a sham. In a hypothetical
general-election match-up, who would you
rather choose to deal with hostile foreign
leaders: a guy who’s capable of pulling off
such an elaborate deception, or the sucker who
fell for it?”(6/20/2003)
… In New
Hampshire yesterday, Kerry says economy will
suffer if estate tax repealed. Headline
from this morning’s The Union Leader – “Kerry
says tax cuts will hurt the economy “
AP’s Holly Ramer reports from Concord: “The
economy will not recover if the estate tax is
repealed and President Bush’s tax cuts for the
wealthiest Americans go forward, Democratic
Presidential hopeful John Kerry said yesterday.
‘We have to have the courage to say no,’
Kerry said at a Concord Chamber of
Commerce lunch. ‘It’s a choice. This is a
zero-sum game, and we deserve leaders who are
going to have the courage to stand up and
present real choices to Americans, not these
fudgy ones that take us down a very wobbly
road to a very dangerous place.’ The
House passed legislation Wednesday that would
abolish estate taxes permanently, but the bill
faces long odds in the Senate. Republicans
argue the tax must be repealed to protect
families who own small businesses and farms
and prevent their heirs from liquidating their
enterprises to pay their tax bills. Kerry
mentioned the bill yesterday when asked how he
would reduce the federal deficit while paying
for all the programs he’s proposed if he gets
elected. He acknowledged it would take years
to erase the deficit, saying money must be
spent to spur the economy. ‘We will get back
on that road to grow the economy out of this
problem,’ he said. ‘The way I begin doing
it is by saying we’ve got to be honest with
the American people. None of this can happen
if we allow the inheritance tax to be cut and
if we allow the top rates of the Bush tax cut
to go forward.’ Instead, Kerry outlined a
half-dozen measures he said would boost the
economy, including a “payroll tax holiday”
that would exempt a worker’s first $10,000 of
income from Social Security taxes. Kerry
first proposed his payroll tax holiday in
December, but emphasized it anew two days
after one of his rivals for the nomination,
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, proposed
a middle-class tax cut to counter Bush’s
strategy of portraying Democrats as
tax-and-spend liberals.” (6/20/2003)
… The Kerry
saga continues. Excerpt from the Boston
Globe’s seven-part – Part 5 – series on
Kerry’s life adventures: “The thrust of
Kerry's candidacy, however, was an attack on
Reagan's economic, foreign, and military
policies. Kerry was scornful, for
instance, of the Grenada invasion, launched by
Reagan the previous October to evacuate US
medical students after a Marxist-backed
military coup on the Caribbean island. At one
point he likened it to ‘Boston College
playing football against the Sisters of Mercy’.
Earlier, Kerry told The Cape Codder
newspaper: ‘The invasion of Grenada represents
the Reagan policy of substituting public
relations for diplomatic relations …no
substantial threat to US interests existed and
American lives were not endangered …The
invasion represented a bully's show of force
against a weak Third World nation. The
invasion only served to heighten world
tensions and further strain brittle US/Soviet
and North/South relations.’ Campaigning now
for president, however, Kerry is rewriting
that history. As he accuses President George
W. Bush of hamhanded diplomacy before the
invasion of Iraq, Kerry often lists Grenada
among the US military incursions he says he
has supported. ‘I was dismissive of the
majesty of the invasion of Grenada,’ Kerry
says now. ‘But I basically was supportive. I
never publicly opposed it.’ He draws a
parallel to his recent stance on Iraq. ‘I
mean, I supported disarming Saddam Hussein,
but I was critical of the administration and
how it did its diplomacy and so forth,’ he
explained of a position critics say is a
telling example of Kerry's straddling.
Ultimately, ‘war and peace’ helped Kerry
carry the day. Even as Massachusetts joined
Reagan's 49-state rout of Walter F. Mondale,
Kerry held the Democratic base, winning
all but one of the state's cities to thump
[self-made millionaire and GOP candidate
Raymond] Shamie by 256,000 votes, a 10-percent
margin. More than 13 years after he
rocketed onto the national stage with his
antiwar speech, Kerry was returning to the
Senate. Now, he would be a member of the club.”
(6/20/2003)
… Headline from this morning’s The Union
Leader: “Kerry threatens filibuster of
Supreme Court nominee” AP coverage of
Kerry’s satellite comments to Dem leaders
meeting in Minnesota -- “Democratic
presidential candidate John Kerry said
Friday that he is prepared to block any
Supreme Court nominee who would not uphold the
Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
‘I am prepared to filibuster, if necessary,
any Supreme Court nominee who would turn back
the clock on a woman's right to choose or the
constitutional right to privacy, on civil
rights and individual liberties and on the
laws protecting workers and the environment,’
Kerry said in remarks prepared for
delivery via satellite at a meeting of
Democratic party officials in St. Paul, Minn.
‘The test is basic
-- any person who thinks it's his or her job
to push an extreme political agenda rather
than to interpret the law should not be a
Supreme Court justice.’ Kerry, a
Massachusetts senator and one of nine
Democrats seeking the party's presidential
nomination, is staking out a position
favorable to liberal women. Kerry also has
said if elected president he would only
appoint judges who support Roe v. Wade, while
his opponents for the nomination say they
would not impose a litmus test on nominees.
All nine Democratic presidential candidates
support abortion rights. President Bush has
said he would fill any Supreme Court vacancies
with judges such as Antonin Scalia or Clarence
Thomas, two of the most conservative justices
on the high court who are presumed to favor
the abolition of Roe v. Wade.”(6/21/2003)
…
Headline from this morning’s Quad-City Times:
“Sen. Kerry warns against distorting term
‘patriotism’” AP’s coverage of Harkin-sponsored
forum in Mason City: “Massachusetts
Sen. John Kerry warned Saturday against what
he sees as an effort by Republicans to make
support for President Bush’s foreign policy a
litmus test for defining patriotism.
Kerry pointed to his record as a decorated
veteran of the Vietnam War and said Democrats
must argue that patriotism isn’t defined by
backing a sitting president. ‘We will not
allow them to take away a flag that belongs to
every single American,’ Kerry said.
Kerry was featured in the latest ‘Hear
it from the Heartland’ series of forums
organized by Sen. Tom Harkin. Harkin
has invited the Democratic candidates to make
their case to activists committed to attending
precinct caucuses next January that will
launch the presidential nominating season. In
recent campaign swings, Kerry has
increased the focus on his military
background, saying it gives him greater
credibility to criticize Bush for his
aggressive policies in combatting terrorism.”(6/22/2003)
…
Minneapolis Wannabe Roundup: In addition
to the general coverage (above), the Star
Tribune also posted online summaries of the
comments by the respective wannabes. The
summary headlines follow: “Howard Dean: Not
willing to concede issues to GOP…Dick
Gephardt: He’d shift from tax cutting to
health-care funding…John Kerry: Not
willing to take back seat on patriotism…Dennis
Kucinich: One of first to step up against
Iraq resolution…Joe Lieberman: Wants
another shot at Bush…Rev. Al Sharpton:
Brings levity along with passion”
(6/22/2003)
…
Dean vs. Kerry, Round 115½: Headline
from yesterday’s The Union Leader: “Stolid
Kerry tries to ignore dynamic Dean” AP
political ace Ron Fournier files report from
Lebanon, NH: “Try as he might to focus
solely on President Bush, highlight his own
record of valor in Vietnam and polish his
prose, Democratic presidential candidate John
Kerry can't escape his closest rival in the
first primary state. Howard Dean's anti-war,
Internet-driven insurgent campaign is a
constant challenge for the New Hampshire
front-runner. At times, the battle between
the two has been personal; Kerry has
tried to move forward -- with limited success.
Consider this encounter with a Kerry
supporter. Bill Hayes chases the Massachusetts
senator down a ribbon of pavement at Colburn
Park, his blue "Kerry" sticker wet with
sweat. ‘Let me tell you about Howard Dean,’
the middle-aged Hayes tells Kerry as he
catches up. ‘He's arrogant. He's got a
temper. And he's too opinionated.’ The
senator chuckles, nods his head and says,
‘We've seen it all.’ It is a glancing blow
against Dean -- one off-the-cuff joke in two
days of stump speeches -- but Kerry realizes
the crack is not part of his campaign message
and, thus, he quickly retreats. ‘I'm
focused on George Bush,’ he tells Hayes, his
hand on the man's shoulder. ‘I want you to
focus on him, too.’ Kerry's strategy
is to use his service in Vietnam to neutralize
Bush's biggest advantage -- his stewardship of
the war on terrorism -- and expose the
president's main vulnerability -- the weak
economy. Kerry did not mention Dean again in
public -- except to express regret for
mentioning him at all.” (6/22/2003)
… “Reckless
accusations: Kerry and Graham smear Bush”
– editorial headline from yesterday’s New
Hampshire Sunday News. Excerpts from the
editorial: “Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Bob
Graham must have very short memories. Last
week Kerry told a crowd in Lebanon [N.
H.] that President George W. Bush personally
misled the American people about Saddam
Hussein's weapons capabilities. ‘He misled
every one of us,’ Kerry said. A week
ago Saturday Graham told a Manchester
audience, ‘I hope that we find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq. If we don't, not only
will our credibility around the world suffer,
but also people's confidence in their
government. I am concerned that either some of
the intelligence was bad or was manipulated in
some way in order to create the impression
that we knew absolutely there were weapons of
mass destruction.’ They must've forgotten
that last November the United Nations passed a
resolution that read in part, ‘Recognizing the
threat Iraq's noncompliance with Council
resolutions and proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction and long-range missiles poses
to international peace and security,’ Iraq
must forthwith disarm and comply with all U.N.
resolutions designed to verify that
disarmament…The United Nations stated that
Saddam did possess weapons of mass
destruction, and [French] President Chirac
implied the same. Yet we don't see John
Kerry or Bob Graham proclaiming that the
inability of American and British troops to
find weapons of mass destruction makes a liar
of the United Nations or Chirac — only of
President Bush. Kerry and Graham are
engaged in the worst sort of political
opportunism. Were they decent men, they would
be ashamed to say such things.”(6/23/2003)
… IOWA PRES
WATCH SIDEBAR: Self-proclaimed patriot Kerry –
who, according to weekend news reports, warned
against creating a litmus test for patriotism
during a Mason City forum – was among 10
senators missing a vote last Friday on
legislation aimed at improving American
history and civics education. The “American
History and Civics Act of 2003” would
authorize $25 million in annual grants to
establish academies for teachers and students
of American history and civics. The bill was
approved 90-0 by the Senate, but two
senator-wannabes – Kerry and Edwards – were
recorded as “not voting.” Graham and Lieberman
voted for the legislation, along with IA Sens.
Grassley and Harkin. (6/23/2003)
…
Washington Times report from yesterday that
Kerry – feeling New Hampshire heat from Dean –
is turning to the left. Headline: “Kerry
lurches left as poll show Dean closing in N.
H. race” Excerpts from report by Times’
veteran political reporter Donald Lambro: “Massachusetts
Sen. John Kerry is suddenly lurching further
to the left in what is being called a
politically calculated move to keep antiwar
candidate Howard Dean from passing him in the
pivotal New Hampshire presidential primary
race. The senator gambled on the about-face
strategy last week as Mr. Dean closed in on
the polls in New Hampshire, propelled by
antiwar activists who are angry about Mr.
Kerry's support of the Iraq war. The shift
has raised questions about Mr. Kerry's
credibility and unleashed a barrage of White
House-initiated attacks from Republican
leaders. ‘It's clear that Dean is getting
uncomfortably close to Kerry and that Kerry is
going after some of the antiwar, liberal
Democrats and independents who have rallied
around Dean because of his opposition to the
war,’ pollster John Zogby said. Mr. Zogby
said his latest poll in New Hampshire, which
will hold the nation's first presidential
primary in January, showed Mr. Kerry
running just 3 points ahead of Mr. Dean,
a former Vermont governor, and thus
statistically even…Three days after Mr.
Kerry refused to answer a question on
ABC's ‘This Week’ about whether President Bush
misled the country on the existence of weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq — saying, ‘It
would be irresponsible of me’ to do so — the
senator told an antiwar crowd in New Hampshire
that Mr. Bush ‘misled every one of us.’
That flip-flop sparked a debate within
Democratic circles about whether Mr. Kerry had
hurt his candidacy by switching positions just
to appeal to a major sector of his party's
political base that is likely to determine the
winner in New Hampshire…Some of the rival
camps worried that the feud between the two
liberals could so eclipse the rest of the
party's field of candidates that it would
push the party's image further to the left and
leave the middle ground for Mr. Bush to pick
up in 2004. Mr. Kerry's switch on Iraq
also drew a sharp condemnation from the Bush
campaign through the Republican National
Committee, that in effect called the senator a
hypocrite.”(6/23/2003)
… Headline
from yesterday’s Register: ‘On Mason City
visit, Kerry takes shots at Bush, GOP…The
candidate touted his military experience and
said he supports a payroll-tax cut and ethanol
use.” Coverage by Jonathon Roos: “Democratic
presidential candidate John Kerry portrayed
Republican incumbent George Bush here Saturday
as a huckster who has left Americans with
failed economic and foreign policies. ‘I
am running for president of the United States
to put America back on track,’ said Kerry,
a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. ‘The one
person who deserves to be laid off is George
W. Bush,’ he added during a ‘Hear it from the
Heartland’ candidate forum sponsored by U.S.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia. Each of the nine
Democratic candidates will appear at one of
the 90-minute forums…Kerry said that if he
is elected president, he will do a better job
than Bush of getting the cooperation of
friends and allies. Kerry, a
Vietnam veteran who first was elected to the
U.S. Senate in 1984, said he is better
equipped than his rivals for the Democratic
nomination to lead the nation because of his
military and congressional experience.
Republicans have tried to scare Americans into
thinking that only they can protect the nation
from terrorism and other foreign threats, he
said. ‘We have to have a candidate that can
stand up and not let them steal the flag, not
allow them to define patriotism.’”(6/23/2003)
…
Headline from this
morning’s Quad-City Times: “U. S. Sen. John
Kerry visits Q-C” Kerry made a
quick visit to eastern Iowa yesterday, makes
more outrageous claim that he’s only senator
to not take special interest bucks. Coverage
by Times’ Rachelle Treiber: “Before rushing
off to catch a flight and beat what his aides
had heard was ‘very bad traffic on an area
bridge,’ presidential candidate John Kerry
spoke with a group of about 60 people at the
Iowa Machine Shed restaurant in Davenport.
Capping off a busy day with appearances in
Muscatine and Iowa City, the
Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts
promised Iowans he would continue to work for
farmers ‘who are getting crushed by
corporatization’ and to ‘give the voice of
our democracy back to the average American.’
As the crowd and some of Kerry’s aides ate
slices of pie, the man who called himself ‘the
only senator to serve 18 years and not take a
dime of special-interest money’ answered a few
questions and told why he thinks the United
States needs a new president in 2004. ‘Our
budget has had its surplus entirely taken
away,’ Kerry said. ‘There are 2.5
million more people out of work, and I think
the one person that ought to be laid off is
George W. Bush.’ The 59-year-old Vietnam
veteran spoke about increasing health-care
costs and said he is even more committed to
lowering health-care premiums after undergoing
successful surgery in mid-February to remove a
cancerous prostate.”(6/24/2003)
… Kerry
stops in Coralville. Headline from
yesterday’s Iowa City Press Citizen: “Kerry
pitches health care plan in Coralville …
Candidate makes first local stop” Coverage by
Gigi Wood: “During a campaign stop Monday,
presidential candidate John Kerry pitched a
one-plan health care reform concept he said
would lower costs and improve coverage. The
Democratic senator from Massachusetts spoke to
roughly 80 people at the Iowa River Power Co.
restaurant about a variety of issues, from the
economy to foreign policy. But the crowd was
most interested in health care. Audience
members asked Kerry about his views on
health issues. With his tall frame silhouetted
against the morning sun streaming through the
restaurant's large windows, Kerry outlined
a national health care plan similar to the
program introduced by President Clinton in the
1990s. ‘I want to offer Americans the same
health care program that the president and
congressmen are enrolled in,’ he said.
‘Candidates usually only talk about bringing
the uninsured into the system, but I want to
make sure the insured Americans have better
programs, too.’
He
said if most of the country were enrolled in
one program, premiums would remain low…A
Vietnam veteran, he pointed out he is the
only candidate who has served and fought in a
war. ‘This
is a dangerous world, we need to make friends,
not enemies. We need to present ourselves
to the United Nations as more humble,’ he
said. ‘This president let us down. We
need to build a peace coalition because it is
difficult winning the peace, not war.’
Reducing unemployment and the country's oil
dependency were other issues Kerry discussed
during the morning meeting. He blamed
President Bush for the country's unemployment
rate.”(6/25/2003)
…
IOWA PRES WATCH SIDEBAR: An online “Quick
Poll” being conducted by the Sioux City
Journal reveals that respondents (495 so far)
aren’t siding with Kerry in his charges that
the president misled Americans on Iraq.
Response to the question: “Do you support John
Kerry’s position that President Bush misled
Americans?” – Yes, 35.4%. No, 64.6%.(6/25/2003)
Kerry gets blistered in a satirical
hometown commentary – and Harkin gets
mentioned, too. The Scot
Lehigh column is based on the seven-part
series on Kerry’s background that
appeared in the Globe last week – except that
the headline says that Lehigh was writing
about “The Kerry we’d like to see” An
excerpt: “The Boston Globe's soup-to-nuts
profile of John Kerry has run its
course, and as is usually the case with
Kerry, the story told inspires a peculiar mix
of admiration and reservation: admiration for
Kerry's courage, intelligence, and ability,
colored by reservations about his egotism,
expediency, and self-absorption. What
would assuage those lingering doubts? Consider
the fanciful scenes that follow. They are
imaginary, of course - but wouldn't one feel
better about Kerry as he runs for president if
at least some of them had actually occurred?
For example, what if, instead of traveling to
the foreign policy hot spot of Nicaragua in
early spring of 1985 with fellow freshman
Senator Tom Harkin, Kerry, then
a senator for less than four months, had
played it this way? It was April of 1985
when Kerry took a call from Senator Tom
Harkin. As he listened, an incredulous
look crossed Kerry's face, 'Nicaragua?
Tom, I've barely got my suitcase unpacked here
in Washington,’ Kerry said. ‘'There's
no way I'm going to Nicaragua. For the next
year or so, I'm going to do what Ted Kennedy
did when he first got elected. Keep a low
profile, cultivate my colleagues, learn the
rules, and pay some dues.’” (6/26/2003)
… When he
wasn’t riding a motorcycle around Laconia, NH,
Kerry was warning of the proliferation of
nuclear weapons – “the most serious issue in
front of the country today” Headline from
yesterday’s The Union Leader: “Kerry:
Weapons proliferation nation’s greatest
challenge” AP’s Holly Ramer reported: “The
proliferation of nuclear and other weapons is
the single greatest challenge facing the
nation and the world, Democratic presidential
hopeful John Kerry said Wednesday. The
senator from Massachusetts spoke briefly to
about 50 supporters in an old textile
mill-turned-art-gallery, where he was asked
how he would have handled allegations several
years ago that America's allies sold nuclear
bomb materials to Iraq. Kerry said
if elected, he would push for better tracking
of such materials, enlist other countries to
pressure each other not to develop nuclear
weapons and ensure that all countries face the
same thorough inspections. ‘This is the
most serious issue in front of the country
today, the world,’ he said. ‘I intend to go to
the United Nations and the world, through NATO
and elsewhere and put this squarely in front
of other leaders ... I believe I can put this
issue on the table and get the United States
of America to raise to a much higher level the
imperative of our doing this.’ Kerry
said the nation has been negligent in
approaching the proliferation problem,
particularly in recent years. ‘We have failed
to create the kind of treaty with the former
Soviet Union, with Russia, which actually
destroys the nuclear war heads that they're
now dismantling,’ he said. ‘We don't destroy
them, we're not even containing all the
fissionable material properly.’ He also
referred to the June 13 arrest of a man in
Thailand accused of trying to sell a container
of cesium-137 for use in a so-called ‘dirty
bomb.’ ‘You know if we caught one, how many
did we not catch? This is the most serious
issue in front of the country today, the
world,’ Kerry said.”(6/27/2003)
…
Apparently, the Washington Post’s Linton
Weeks couldn’t resist the temptation –
hands out awards for a Dem event
attended by 7 of the 9 prez hopefuls.
The headline: “Democratic
Candidates Chew Over Their Chances”
The report from yesterday’s Post:
“Only two of the Democratic hopefuls --
Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman --
were missing last night at the
Democratic National Committee's
presidential candidates dinner at the
Mayflower Hotel. Everyone else was
there. More than 650 tickets were sold
for the event, which raised $1.7
million, according to DNC spokeswoman
Debra DeShong. The money will go into
a pot to be used by the candidate who
emerges from the primaries as the chosen
one. Last night, in the cramped
quarters of the hotel's Grand Ballroom,
it was kind of hard to tell just who
that frontrunner might be. DNC
Chairman Terry McAuliffe ran the show,
recalling days of Clintonian glory and
taking pokes at President Bush. ‘He has
put a big old For Sale sign on the U.S.
Capitol,’ McAuliffe said. With so many
candidates and so little time, McAuliffe
tried to hurry things along…he handed
out awards to big-dollar Democratic
donors like Haim Saban, creator of the
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. As each
candidate rose and gave a brief speech,
we, too, wanted to hand out awards…
• Flimsiest Excuse for Not Being
There: Kerry and Lieberman were raising
money for their own campaigns.(6/27/2003)
… The Boston Globe reported
Friday that Kerry’s candidacy has been
endorsed by Clinton defense secretary William
Perry. Report Friday by the Globe’s Glen
Johnson: “Senator John F. Kerry
yesterday received the backing of former
defense secretary William J. Perry in his
campaign for the Democratic presidential
nomination. Perry, who served as civilian
leader of the US armed forces from 1994 to
1997 under former President Clinton, was
scheduled to join Kerry [Friday] at a
fund-raiser in Atherton, Calif., near San
Francisco. He plans to provide military and
defense policy advice for the duration of the
campaign. Most recently, Perry served
publicly as a special US envoy to North Korea,
whose recent steps to develop a nuclear
arsenal has triggered a policy dispute between
Kerry and President Bush. Perry decided to
support the Massachusetts Democrat based on
Kerry's experience in the military and his
support for defense in the Senate. ‘The
deciding factor for me was his very strong
role in national security,’ he said. In a
statement, Kerry said he was gratified
by the endorsement. ''One of the missions
of this campaign is to return to the
tough-minded strategy of international
engagement and leadership forged by Wilson and
Roosevelt in two world wars and championed by
Truman and Kennedy in the Cold War,'' Kerry
said.” (6/29/2003)
… Six Dem
wannabes go after the Latino vote in Phoenix.
Associated Press’ Mike Glover, usually
assigned to cover IA politics, reported from
Phoenix. Headline from yesterday’s The Union
Leader: “Six Democrats court Hispanic
voters in Ariz.” Glover’s report: “Six
rivals for the Democratic presidential
nomination, courting the large and growing
Hispanic community Saturday, promised to
overhaul the nation's immigration policy and
enlarge economic opportunities for newcomers.
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry noted his
service in the Vietnam War, where a large
percentage of those in the thick of battle
were minorities. Many came back to the United
States and found little opportunity, he said.
"I learned how tough it was, how promises were
broken," Kerry said. (6/30/2003)
Kerry
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