LA Times: Making 'Liberal' a Fighting Word Again

[question everything]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-liberal15oct15,1,4023120.story?coll=la-home-headlines

THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE

Making 'Liberal' a Fighting Word Again
By Janet Hook
Times Staff Writer

October 15, 2004

WASHINGTON — A key part of President Bush's message for the final weeks of the campaign is starting to sound like a schoolyard taunt: Kerry is a liberal! Kerry is a liberal!

Democrat John F. Kerry's response at the final presidential debate Wednesday sometimes sounded like the political equivalent of: So? You wanna make something of it?

Kerry has unflinchingly embraced the liberal pillars of the Great Society and the New Deal, calling for an expansion of Medicaid, keeping Social Security in its current form, and using the levers of government to help the middle class and the disadvantaged. He has backed higher taxes for the rich, affirmative action and an increase in the minimum wage.

(snip)

The Bush campaign is betting that by focusing on his most liberal views, it can do to Kerry what Bush's father did to Michael S. Dukakis in the 1988 campaign — portray the Democratic nominee as too left-wing to lead a country with values more traditional than those in his native Massachusetts. That is a shift from the Bush campaign's monthslong effort to portray Kerry as an indecisive flip-flopper and to undercut his credibility as a potential commander-in-chief.

(snip)

The outcome of the election will hinge, in part, on whether the liberal label will be as much of a boogeyman as it was in 1988. Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been urging the Bush camp to take this line of attack against Kerry, is confident it can be. "No Democrat has been defined as an open liberal and won a presidential election since 1964," he said. "Kerry says labels are misleading because he understands labels are the end of his campaign."

(snip)

[David Dunham]

1. What about Al Gore winning in 2000?

[pretzel4gore]

2. even when they tell truth they lie

it's maybe impossible for these mediawhores to be honest w/out lying....gore won the 2k election, asshole, and all the fukken lying on earth will not change that...
the 'chimp-in-charge' you mean! oh jeesus!