Kerry: Achilles Heel?

[Jack_Dawson]

The RW media's vitriol for Clark and Dean has been well-documented. Even Edwards has been catching a ration of shit lately. But Kerry seems to be skating.

I know he's struggled with his IWR vote, but is there some other skeleton in the closet we should get ready for? I'm not trying to dig up dirt...I like Kerry and would be comfortable w/ him as the nominee. I just don't know much about him and what "the rap" on him is, if anything.

Happy Friday, everyone!

:toast:

[feckerman]

1. Hmm..

If the conspiracy theory article from last night proves to be true, Kerry wins New Hampshire, and then the freepers attack, taking him down.

We'll see if it is true... as he certainly has skeletons :|

[Jack_Dawson]

2. What kind of skeletons?

He seems like a solid citizen to me. Other than being branded with the "Northeast Liberal" nonsense.

[creativelcro]

27. Man, he is a skeleton himself :)

[Feanorcurufinwe]

3. Ask William Weld

Weld and Kerry had a bloody electoral battle for Kerry's Senate seat in '96. And Weld wasn't able to lay a glove on him.

Kerry has been thoroughly vetted.

[regnaD kciN]

15. He's been vetted for the MASSACHUSETTS electorate...

...which is far different from the country as a whole.

Labeling someone as a "Massachusetts liberal" is unlikely to increase their negatives among Boston voters, which cannot be said for voters in the south. And, if Bay Staters have any complaints about Kerry's leadership of VVAW, they would probably have to do with his throwing back someone else's medals instead of his own. ;-) Elsewhere in the country, leading demonstrations against the war ("giving aid and comfort to the Vietcong while they were killing his fellow veterans") might well be considered high treason.

Let's face it: if Massachusetts standards prevailed across the country, we might be looking back to the 80s as the golden days of the Teddy Kennedy presidency. :-(

[isbister]

4. Kerry's been in the public eye for a long time

and if there's some hidden gotcha someone's probably brought it up a long time ago... and Kerry's had to deal with it.

The republicans are going to try to define Kerry and with all of their money they will have some success but in the end bush only has his record to stand on.

Here, here is a nice site detailing what these republicans are doing to the environment:

http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/

They've done so many things wrong for the country, we Democrats could/should spend months just attacking this one issue alone! No matter what party you're in, no matter how rich or poor, you still have to rely on the quality of our air and water.

[AP]

5. The Fire Hydrant.

It's stupid, but I just know they're going to make a big deal about it at the worst time.

[Jack_Dawson]

14. Fire Hydrant?

I don't get it.

[zulchzulu]

6. Planting the seeds of doubt is an old political trick

The GOP is known for playing dirty politics. They will be outed this time around.

Dubya is scared he's going to be grilled for his AWOL record by Kerry. Well, guess what. He will be!

[Jacobin]

12. Jeeze, didja have to post his PORES?

[diamond14]

21. Kerry photo.....reduced to viewing size...Kerry looking at his new

'bush*-in-a-flight-suite-doll'

with an added

"BYE! George" sign
stuck on it's crotch....





.....sweet....Kerry knows aircrafts FOR REAL....

[nightperson]

22. Thanks

for posting this picture. I hope a lot of people see it. It really puts things in, uh, perspective. The enlarged version is worth the download wait, especially to see Bush's hands!:thumbsup: :toast: :yourock:

[George_Bonanza]

7. Philly cheesesteak?

[nightperson]

8. On another thread,

I just pointed out that Kerry has been high-profile for so many years (decades!) that we can feel fairly certain that anything and everything that could be used against him already has been . Relax in that knowledge :toast: ! I think it's an important edge he has over some of the other candidates.

[DoNotRefill]

9. Gun control...

one of the third rails in national politics, and he's right smack-dab on it.

[doc03]

25. Massachusetts Liberal/Gun Control

[quaker bill]

10. Well for starters

He was an advocate for cutting defense spending on weapon systems when he first came to the Senate. Most of the systems were built anyway and used very effectively in Iraq.

The record for this charge is there. I don't think of it as legitimate criticism myself, but I can't see the repugs not putting it to use.

I mean, after all, Al Gore never actually said he "invented the Internet". Any shred of evidence is good enough for them.

Then there is his vote against Gulf War I. I can see a good "If we had listened to him Saddam would still have been in Kuwait" meme coming from this.

Again, I don't buy the criticism myself. But I would not be surprised if they used it.

He was Mike Dukakis's Lt. Gov.. I will bet there are some good photos of him and Mike side by side. "Can we afford another N.E. liberal?"

I don't buy this either. But then again perhaps a "Willie Horton' revival? I would not put it past them.

In my opinion though, it hardly matters, because regardless of who we run and no matter how clean their past is, if all else fails, the repugs will just make stuff up.

[oldleftguy]

11. His anti-war Vietnam stance is the only thing I can think of.

Jane Fonda (Hanoi Jane) connections. However, having the experience of being in the anti-war movement means a plus to me. Having Veterans against the war gave the movement credibility. Especially considering Kerry's silver and bronze stars as well as purple hearts. (Note plural) There is some story about his trowing the medals over some wall during a demonstration, yet the medals are displayed on the wall of his congressional office.

[Guaranteed]

13. He has a number of them,

the first being that he's just a liberal.

Second, he's a New ENGLAND liberal.

Third, his gun control record.

And, finally, yes, his IWR vote. He's going to get nailed from BOTH sides by Bush on this. First Bush will ask him how he can possibly oppose this war, which he authorized. THEN, he's going to get nailed simply for saying that he opposes the war- he's soft on defense. He's going to get it BOTH ways. That one issue, I believe, is his true Achille's Heel, being so caught in the middle, and will lose him the election.

[yankeeinlouisiana]

16. I kinda remember something from when he was in

Vietnam mentioned last year. Kerry & his squad/troops (is that the right word?)were either ambushed and shot back or the twisted version is Kerry and his squad/troops shot innocent civilians. This or something along these lines might be what they're talking about.

:shrug:

[Jerseycoa]

20. Different pol - Bob Kerrey

[Southsideirish]

17. Cannot fathom Kerry surge - even Drudge loves him (???)

and you know something is weird with that - what are they up to? First Iowa, now NH and no negative reports on him??? I smell an organized rat. This afternoon Drudge ran a big photo of him looking like Christ himself while he usually depicts Dems with horrid photos looking very un-attractive yet Kerry escapes unscathed. Is he the candidate they really have been *wanting" all along as they know he is so beatable with his razor thin legislative record? Something is very wrong here.

[Mz Pip]

18. Northeastern Liberal

Than will be a huge talking point. That and the pics of him throwing his medals and the one of his pretending to smoke a joint.

I like Kerry too, but he can be duller than dishwater at times. But I do wish him well if he is the nominee. I'm still not convinced he will do well in the South any more than I was convinced Dean would do well in the SOuth.

MzPip
:dem:

[snyttri]

19. Taxachusetts liberal (people's republic of massachusetts) with voting

record to the left of Ted Kennedy. Supported Willie Horton law. A tall Michael Dukakis. Captive of telecommunications industry and the Chinese.

http://www.bop2004.org/bop2004/dw.aspx?cid=4

Washington insider, elitist Boston Brahmin (ironic against W) out of touch with ordinary Americans. Looks French. Doesn't talk like a regular American. Rich legislative record of voting in favor of legislative packages that contained many individual items most Americans are opposed to. He may not have revealed he is not Irish because the name helps him politically in Boston.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-kerry09.html

[bigtree]

24. Fron the Sun-Times: Not Irish, Jewish.

Kerry grew up in the dark over the circumstances of his (Jewish)grandfather's suicide. "He knew his grandfather died when he was very young,'' Wade said.

Kranish, the Globe reporter, showed Kerry copies of Boston newspapers from Nov. 23, 1921, headlined with the news that a merchant killed himself with a single shot from his revolver.

"God, that's awful," Kerry told the Globe after reading the article. "Oh God, that's awful. That is kind of heavy." Wade said Kerry's father, who died in 2000, never talked much about his father's suicide and that the senator only was told about the suicide during his father's "last years, when his father was very ill," Wade said.

The revelation, said Wade, "turned on a light bulb for John Kerry on why his father was so understandably reticent to talk about it," and it "helps John Kerry understand his father much more and what his father went through."


See how this personal stuff is just that: personal?

BTW, the Center for public integrity link didn't have a summary of Sen. Kerry's record that anywhere resembled your rambling litany of potential problems and conflicts. Did you make your own analysis of his record to come up with these?

[bigtree]

23. The thing he has to fear is the Democrat's penchant

for eating their own. We held the White House and both houses of Congress and Democrats couldn't stop fighting long enough to maintain the congressional majority. Moynihan hung Pres. Clinton out to dry on the health bill. Others like Sam Nunn savaged him over gays in the military. The biggest danger for any Democrat elected is that once he is in that seat he, and any agenda he brought in with him is a target. John Kerry has a record of standing firm for what he believes in: ANWAR, clean air and water, Iran-Contra, BCCI, etc. I believe that he will put Bush out on his heel in November.

[question everything]

26. A nice letter in the LA Times

From http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-le-kerry24jan24,1,7550763.story

To those who think that no Democrat can beat Bush in November I offer this true story. In the summer of 1991 I was given a ride from my hotel in downtown Little Rock by then-Gov. Bill Clinton. It was early on a Sunday morning and the governor was wearing shorts and driving a beat-up old car. When we got to the airport he carried my luggage in and even helped me check in for the flight. Not wanting to be too beholden to a politician, I offered to buy him breakfast.

As we sat talking, I was emboldened by the casualness of the situation and asked the governor if he was in fact going to run for president the next year, as I had heard from some friends. His reply sticks to me word for word to this day. He said, "No one is going to beat George Bush next year." Remember, this was soon after the president's Desert Storm triumph. "But my advisors tell me that unless I run in 1992, I'll have little chance of being elected in 1996."

It just goes to show that in politics nothing is over until it's over and anything can happen between now and November. Of course, Clinton had more charisma and people skills than any politician since John F. Kennedy, but as Dean just learned in Iowa, a lot can happen to an early lead as the vote nears.

By the way, to my amazement Clinton never asked me for anything. Months later I had to volunteer for the campaign and ended up producing part of the inauguration.

Ken Kragen
Beverly Hills

[Gin]

28. This matter to me about Kerry...he voted for the invasion of Iraq

after seeing the devastation of another unecessary war. Did he not learn any lessons from that?

[Im Now a Progressive]

29. As I understand it

His book could be a problem. When he first ran for Senator, most copies disappeared but not all. I guess he said some very unflattering things about his fellow veterans.