Can Kerry sell his anti DP stance to the public?

[fujiyama]

I think he can do a better job than Dukakis did with it, but the question is how will he handle it? Someone suggested making it that he personally disagrees with it, but he wouldn't change the system. Hmmm...what about the federal DP?
Just curious, how big an issue will this be in the GE?

[quinnox]

1. My opinion

It won't be much of a factor. Kerry's war hero background and stateman's poise poses big problems for GOP in trying to paint him as traditional "Mass. liberal".

Maybe Bush campaign will try to make an issue about it, but I doubt it because even some republicans are wary about death penalty. There was a repub governor who recently ordered all executions halted because there were some flaws and an innocent man was almost put to death. I forget his name but Kerry could bring him up if he had to.

[Divernan]

3. That was exGovernor Ryan of Illinois

who stopped all executions. I just visited an elderly relative in an assisted living facility in Ryan's hometown, Kankakee, and had an interesting political conversation with a large group (10 - 6 white, 4 black) workers there. They unanimously want to, in one woman's language, dropkick Bush out of the White House at the next election. But someone brought up Ryan, and he was equally hated because of his death penalty decision. Evidently there were some particularly heinous killings locally and the admitted perp's death sentence was changed to life imprisonment. These low wage workers felt he should have been executed and they also bitterly resented the fact that this guy would live his life out at their/taxpayer's expense of some $40,000 per year. There were also many comments about how corrupt the Ryan administration was (Ryan has been indicted for many federal counts) and how they didn't know how the ex-Governor and his wife dared show their faces in their own hometown.

[union_maid]

2. There are lots of good reasons that Kerry mentions his Vietnam Service

This is one of them. The Republicans love painting liberal Democrats as wimps. Kerry is anything but and has credentials to prove it. He's also been a prosecuter and knows the pro-prosecution side of the street well. He can say what others can't. The president also has relatively little input on the DP. With recent data, if they want to make an issue of this, I think he'll do fine. This election is going to be about Bush.