AP: Kerry calls out Edwards on his trade positions and humble roots

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51785-2004Feb18.html

By NEDRA PICKLER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 18, 2004; 2:50 PM


DAYTON, Ohio - Democratic front-runner John Kerry had kind words Wednesday for longtime nemesis Howard Dean as he exited the race for the nomination but signaled a new phase of engagement with John Edwards.

While speaking with reporters Wednesday, Kerry dismissed key points of Edwards' campaign and questioned whether a candidate's background should be an issue. Edwards often tells voters that he understands the pain of job loss because of his working-class Southern background, which contrasts with Kerry's upbringing in boarding school and Boston society. But Kerry said a person's roots should not be part of the debate. "If where you come from was a qualification for being president, we'd have never had Franklin Roosevelt or John Kennedy," he said.

Edwards criticized Kerry for supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement while campaigning in Wisconsin, a state that has lost thousands of manufacturing jobs and where resentment of free trade runs high.

But Kerry said he and Edwards have exactly the same policy on trade. He said they both voted for normalized trade relations with China and both want to see labor and environmental standards addressed in trade pacts.

Although Edwards said he would have voted against NAFTA, Kerry said: "He wasn't in the Senate back then. I don't know where he registered his vote, but it wasn't in the Senate."

[Feanorcurufinwe]

1. Facts can be so inconvenient.

[mojo2004]

2. But does Kerry support NAFTA today?

That is the question. Edwards has made his position clear. Is Kerry gonnna say he was wrong in his NAFTA vote now?

[dave29]

4. He will say he was wrong

and then explain how he was right

[blm]

6. Is Edwards' position that he will repeal NAFTA?

I would wager that Kerry intends to use the bully pulpit to put in the environmental and labor safeguards that he wrote into an amendment for NAFTA back when it was being voted.

[joyautumn]

9. meaning of ...

that depends on what the meaning of the word "today" is "today".

[citizen snips]

3. I like Edwards humble roots.

He gives us hope in this time of unemplyoment. And Edwards can relate to people because he was once poor.

[blm]

5. I just watched him say this on Inside Politics...

he said it calmly with NO derision and with no vitriol. Nedra Pickler is just trying to promote a controversy where none is there.

[Leilani]

7. I was shocked when I heard this

on Inside Politics.

Edwards voted for MFN with China????

He wasn't in the Senate for the NAFTA vote, but he voted yes on MFN.

So when did he change his mind on Free Trade? They are all liars, except for Kucinich & Gephardt, on trade.

Edwards is nothing new; he's just as much of a double talking pol as Kerry, only Kerry has been at it longer.

[surfermaw]

10. Didn't Dean give his message, he was agains sthe war

Who know he wasn't there for a vote, isn't that what Edwards was doing. God Bless Doctor Dean..he gave us the strength to fight back.

[joyautumn]

8. Of Snake Oil and Born-Again Teamsters

nobody's making it up -- edwards was selling snake-oil again saying he feels the pain of the working class. sure, his parents were working class, but edwards apparently has never belonged to a union. he went from high school to college to law school to several years as a CORPORATE lawyer, before becoming a high-profile ambulance-chaser.

seriously, his record of victories in personal injury suits makes ME wonder if it ain't time for tort reform -- 27 million bucks a crack? nah, i guess i'm still for stickin' it to the corporations, but Edwards is no Public Citizen grunt or anything remotely like a "public interest lawyer" (I've worked with lots of them -- they make salaries in the $20-$40k range at little non-profits all over the country).

NAFTA -- here's where he stands:

http://www.issues2000.org/Free_Trade.htm#John_Edwards

Notice how all his quotes are "no no no" but his votes are "YES YES YES"

Expect the same to continue if he's the Prez, just like we got with Clinton who convinced us he could "feel the pain" of all those fatherless kids on welfare like his poor little ol' self.

Oh, and I noted that one bio I saw mentioned that his parents helped pay his way through law school -- so by the time he was a young adult they had apparently held pretty good union jobs for a good long time. He wasn't a financial aid case, like I was.

On the other hand, what's this latest news that Hoffa has come out saying he's endorsing Kerry because he thinks that by November Kerry will become a born-again union man on free trade?

If NAFTA is your issue, then, yes I know he looks like a fetus, but Kucinich is your man, now that Gephardt is gone. Sharpton was very vocal against NAFTA if I remember right, but elsewhere on this list I heard he's been reduced to 3/5ths of a candidate by DU standards.

At some point, you have to realize that electability means nothing if it means electing somebody who stands for what you're against and all but lies to your face about it! doesn't it?

[surfermaw]

11. Please don't tear the other candidates down at this time

They are leading Bush in the polls, I love Dennis and think most people hear and in the party dose...but we see the hand righting on the wall and are going with the candidates that we think could beat Bush. Love you Dennis, you are one good guy.

[joyautumn]

12. but, uh ... they're naked, completely exposed

"tear down" the candidates by telling the truth about them? the emperors have no clothes!

don't you see the ridiculous position the Democratic Party is now in? The head of the Teamsters is openly saying Kerry has always voted against them but he now thinks Kerry will suddenly "evolve" and become pro-union. Why -- because Kerry needs them to beat Bush? No way -- Kerry needs them to beat Kucinich, who the Teamsters should have endorsed the minute Gephardt dropped out. But come GE Kerry will run like rabbits from Hoffa back to his anti-union record, and that will be the mandate for his administration: free trade all the way. There's a completely misguided surge of anti-NAFTA support for sweet-talkin' Edwards, who votes mostly against fair trade, and this is also more pure wishful thinking from voters who should be voting Kucinich. Kerry, Edwards and Dean are all fake versions of one facet of what Kucinich really is -- a plain old Democrat. If the fake Dem wins like he did in '92, we'll have imperialism we feel good about for 8 years, then it's back to some hardcore fascism for a while.

Both Kerry and Edwards are pretending they will carry the torch for Gephardt, Kucinich and Sharpton on fair trade, but why on earth would they??? Whose delegates at the convention will force them to?

this is precisely why Nader ran in 2000, and why the Dems are FORCING him to run again this year -- because the process goes like this:

Step 1: imagine candidate X in a debate with Dubya.
Step 2: imagine X doing to Dubya what Reagan did to Poppy in the '80 primary -- outswagger and outcharm and outPresidential him.
Step 3: rate plausibility of X Reaganizing Dubya on a scale of one to 100, and that's X's electability factor.
Step 4: consider only the candidates with electability factor over 70, and pick the least traitorous one of them.
Step 5: check the polls or latest primary/caucus to see if enough fellow voters agree with your decision, and return to Step 1 if not.

So what do you get with this process? You get the candidate most like Ronald Reagan, that's what you get.

Congratulations, you've just become a Reagan Democrat.

I'd rather wind up being a Nader Republican instead, any day, any month, any century. The best critiques of the Bush administration right now are coming from Michael Ruppert, Kevin Phillips, Bill Safire, and yes, even Lyndon Larouche. Larouche, at least, goes into excruciating detail about who he thinks is doing what to America and why, and what must be done to stop them. I don't buy his conclusions, but I learn ten thousand times more from reading his stuff than I do researching the emptiness that is Kerry or Edwards. Meanwhile, Richard Perle has been pressuring Israel to abandon a bunch of the West Bank settlers to what he calls their own foolishly chosen fate, while Hilary comes out excoriating anyone who dares criticize Israel's urgent right and need to build that wall of theirs.

If the Dems don't put forth an actual Democrat, which they haven't since Dukakis, then this presidential race will be a contest between the two deeply divided wings of the Republican Party, except unlike in '92, this time the fake Democrat will finish a distant third instead of squeaking out the weak plurality Clinton did. Looking back, I have my doubts about Dukakis as well... I don't know if there ever was a Dem nominee who really stuck his neck out for the people who vote for them year after year.