A MA journalist weighs in on Kerry damningly

[Carolina]

I admit, I don't care for Kerry one bit, so I'm urging all March 2nd voters to take a look at Edwards and consider voting for him. This article just adds fuel to my anti-Kerry fire. Your thoughts?

Will the Real John Kerry Please Stand Up? by Anthony Schinella editor of The Winchester Star, a weekly newspaper in Winchester, Mass

As someone who has watched Kerry over the years, seen him in other races, and observed him lose all spine when the tough votes came along, his surge is a big surprise. For 18 years, Kerry has done very little he can point to by way of accomplishment...

Take organized labor.

Kerry has always had a bad relationship with the unions in Massachusetts... His reaction to working folks has been a blasé toss of the hand, while reciting nonsensical globalist gobbledygook: If Americans can't compete with 10 cent labor in China, too bad. At an event in Manchester, N.H. back in August 2003, Kerry said precisely that to a handful of unionized Verizon workers complaining about outsourcing...

In fact, on a myriad of issues Kerry has been part of the problem in Washington, D.C. and so closely resembles President George W. Bush it is a wonder what the Democrats of 2004 are thinking...

For almost two decades, Kerry hasn’t been fighting the special interests he has been enabling the special interests...

In the end, voters may ignore Kerry’s real record and vote for him because the national press corps believes he is “electable.” But voters would be smart to take a second look and sharply analyze Kerry’s true record because when all is said and done, they may not like what they see.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0219-11.htm

[oasis]

1. Well, that's one man's opinion. And from the "weekly" Winchester Star,

impressive.

[cryofan]

15. the Weeklies are typically far more LIBERAL than mainstream

And now we are seeing more and more non-mainstream press weighing in on Kerry v Edwards, and although they would all prefer someone like Kucinich, the alternative press has pretty much have determined that Edwards is the more likely to be liberal.

Spread the word.....

[Raya]

17. Same Op/Ed has been published several times before. Now recycled again

[DemDogs]

18. Does that make it false? n/t

[molly]

2. If Wes Clark ends up as his running mate - would you like

him then?

[Carolina]

14. hardly,

I left Kerry after IWR and went to Clark with the draft movement last June. Nothing Kerry can ever do will make me like him after I shook his hand and personally told him at SC DemFest in summer 2002 that Bush's Iraq plans were a ruse.

Clark's early endorsement, which I did not like, changes nothing about Kerry in my eyes and never will. I can't stand the man.

I could forgive his No Child Left Behind vote but then, again using political calculation, Kerry declined to even cast vote against Bush's Meidcare bill a few months back despite making a big to do about remaining in DC for the very reason of voting... Guess he didn't want the record, the action to bite him in the butt like IWR has. Bottom line, Kerry is a lot of talk, uninspiring talk at that. But when it comes to actions ...

I'll vote ABB but it would have been much better to have been able to enthusiastically vote FOR the Dem nominee.

[MurikanDemocrat]

3. The author, Anthony Schinella, is a Nader supporter

He worked on the Nader/LaDuke campaign in NH. So the timing of this Kerry hit piece at the time Nader announces is not surprising.

[Octafish]

5. Nice catch, Murikan'!

From what the record shows, Kerry carried water for:

• public education
• protecting Social Security/Medicaid/Medicare
• organized labor
• the middle class
• small businesses
• the environment
• investing in developing alternate energy sources
• a bunch more stuff...

BTW: Besides write a book and invest well, what's Nader EVER done?

[MurikanDemocrat]

7. I just knew the article was bullshit, and mischaracterizes Kerry's

record. But that's nothing new.

[IndianaGreen]

9. If what he said about Kerry is true, who cares who he supported?

John Forbes Kerry does not oppose Bush's policies, he opposes the way Bush has tried to implement those policies.

What Kerry is saying is that he can do a better job than Bush in pursuing Bush's policies on the war, trade, jobs, NCLB, etc.

[MurikanDemocrat]

11. He has mischaracterized Kerry's record

Almost as bad as you usually do.

[ShimokitaJer]

13. How so?

What specifically do you object to?

[Carolina]

12. good points, IG

and that's partially the point of the article.

Nothing Kerry does or says now can overcome the sense of many that he's a finger in the wind, career political waffler and definitely not the best person the party could have put forth as its standard bearer at this crucial time.

Add his record to his oratory style and lack of GQ appeal and YUCK!

Sorry folks, flame if you will but style trumps substance as we've sadly seen in recent elections (CA w/Arnold). Kerry's substance is suspect and liable to all sorts of unelectable twists and he has NO charisma.

We better hope there are a lot of Bush haters outside this board.

[flpoljunkie]

4. Edward's true record is that he voted for the China Trade Deal--where most

of the American jobs last in the last several years have gone. John Edward's has become the "fighting populist" whose record does not match his rhetoric, and his environmental record is abysmal.

Edwards and Lieberman were the chosen candidates of the DLC and Edward's record in the Senate is considered to be that of a moderate, a centrist. His populist reincarnation was designed to try and gain some traction in an primary in which he has won only one state--his native state of South Carolina, which will, no doubt, go to Bush in November.

[AP]

6. China is your only refuge. What about all the other bills?

"{Edwards} did approve China's entry into the World Trade Organization, which opened one of the world's biggest markets to American industry. And he voted initially to give the president authority to negotiate trade agreements as long they contained certain labor provisions. But when those protections were stripped out of the bill, Mr. Edwards voted against final passage, while Mr. Kerry voted for it.

"Mr. Edwards also voted against smaller trade deals for African and Caribbean nations, while Mr. Kerry supported them. Even though these agreements opened up the American market to some of the poorest nations, Mr. Edwards said they would have hurt the textile mills and workers in his home state, North Carolina. The only free trade accord he supported was with Jordan, which has labor standards in the pact.

"Mr. Edwards insists that protection for labor and environmental standards must be part of the texts of trade agreements because that is the only way to enforce them. Mr. Kerry says they can be accommodated in side agreements. This is probably their central dispute.

"Mr. Kerry has voted for all trade agreements since the cold war ended and opened the way for increasing globalization. But on the presidential trail, he has become a skeptic and now promises to review them."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/20/politics/campaign/20ISSU.html

[DemDogs]

19. Kerry voted for China AND against labor/human rights amendment to China

So I doubt we will be hearing this complaint from him.

[KC21304]

8. What in the world were they thinking when labor gave him

a 91% favorable rating ? Guess you can fool some of the people etc. LOL. Who is trying to fool the people now ?

[AP]

10. I bet you can put together a candidate who gets 90+% from all the liberal

interest groups, like HRC, environment, labor, and still come with a candidate who is 100% Wall St (like Al Gore) and therefore, not quite the progressive flag bearer you'd think you were getting after looking at all the individual rankings.

And I bet that if you found a candidate who actually cared about which direction wealth flowed in this country, the NYTimes, the HRC, and every other liberal interest group in America with tight connections to the corporatocracy would find a way to drive a wedge in the left, suggesting to them that that candidate wasn't liberal enough, and suggesting that it's much more important to score in the plus 90s on the single issue litmus tests.

[Carolina]

16. they were swallowing the hook, line and sinker of

electability, and as the article states, in Massachusetts, Kerry's opposition was worse on labor issues, so Labor chose the lesser of two EVILS.