Kerry = Dukakis

[dkf]

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96aug/beatty/beatty.htm

His current wife, Teresa Heinz, was born in Mozambique, then a Portuguese colony. The widow of the late John Heinz, a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, she is the heiress to the $650 million Heinz catsup fortune. Last year, when Heinz was mugged in Washington, Kerry kept to his round of fundraising events instead of rushing to her side. Did she miss him? "I just needed hugs," she confided to Margery Eagan, of the Boston Herald . Those may have been the four most frightening words spoken in Massachusetts Democratic politics in decades."


Can you say "Dukakis"? Kerry must be his taller twin. Remember how Dukakis reacted so unemotionally to the thought of his wife being raped? Well Kerry kept on campaigning when his wife was mugged.

[Frances]

1. Dukakis never saved a man's life in combat

Nope, people may not vote for Kerry, but that won't be the reason.

This will be the year of the macho president, and people will let something like that pass.

[Warpy]

2. yeah, right, he's the Antichrist

he skewers infants and dines on live puppies. Since he's the front runner, let's tell the world all sorts of things. For instance, we now know he set his Wayback machine and sank the Titanic.

This is not helpful. The plan is to unseat Bush, not spread a lot of gossipy crap on message boards.

[maxr4clark]

3. I think you're overrating Kerry.

Kerry was Dukakis's lieutenant governor, don't forget. Even his home state didn't think Kerry was as good as Dukakis.

What has Kerry done for this country to merit his choice as President? As far as I can tell, he is still reliving the Vietnam war, and hasn't done much to distinguish himself in the Senate. I think his votes for the IWR and the Patriot Act show that he is a follower, not a leader. His past sounds as full of skeletons as any candidate we've ever had.

There is only one thing that has given Kerry so much momentum, and that is Dean's self-destruction. I honestly don't see why anyone thinks he is impressive enough to replace an incumbent President, much less one who seems to be very popular for having been in the Oval Office on 9/11.

[murielm99]

8. If his own state did not think he was as good as Dukakis..

then why have they elected him senator for the last 19 years?

I believe he is highlighting his Vietnam record to contrast himself with Shrub. Also, it helps him as the nominee, because people always seem to want a veteran while we are fighting a war.

I remember when he protested the war. It was a very dangerous thing to do at the time, especially for a veteran.

What has he done to merit his choice as President?

Among other things:

The NAACP gives him a 100% rating. He voted against DOMA. He did not vote for the tax cuts, the terrible bills to harm the environment, or the 87 billion dollars for Iraq.

He has the foreign policy experience, serving on the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

Yeah, he voted for the Patriot Act....and I believe only one senator voted against it.

He voted for the IRW, along with Harkin, Clinton and Boxer.

Compare his record to shrubs record.

And who exactly appointed Dean the frontrunner, anyway? A bunch of talking heads and pollsters. I think the voters decide who the frontrunner is, by going to the polls and caucuses. At least so far, they do that.

Dean got all kinds of credit for bringing "young people" and new people into the process. I have three children in college. Two of them are working for Kerry. I have seen with my own eyes how many young people KERRY is bringing into the process. And new people? Record numbers are turning out for caucuses and primaries everywhere. The Washington Post reported that so many new people were registering in Missouri that the county courthouses could not handle the load. I believe Kerry won there. So, who do you suppose many of those new people were voting for?

I was not a Kerry supporter originally. I do credit Dean for helping the Democrats to grow a new backbone, at long last. But where are his voters? If he can't get the vote out, he is gone. How long have you been a Dem? Have you done any grassroots work? I have, for many years. The important thing is getting the vote out. Dean did not, Kerry did.

Check Kerry's record before you say anything against him.

Sour grapes anyone? No thanks. Keep them to yourself.

[eileen_d]

4. That's weak.

And no, I can't say "Dukakis."

[oasis]

5. Did she require hospitalization or just "hugs". No mention of Dukakis in

the story. Is that your invention, or is it further down?

BTW, who do you support?

[Kanary]

16. Geeeeez

Unless she was beat up, she doesn't need her husband to be there for her?

We're all supposed to weather all trauma alone?

What in the world are we coming to as a society?

This is so hard and tough I can't even believe what I'm reading.

Kanary, getting more discouraged by the minute

Kucinich 2004!

[Beaker]

6. Didn't Bush go fishing when his daughter had surgery?

He sure didn't show up for either one of them in court.

[dkf]

7. OK, Kerry = Bush.

Happy now?

[Beaker]

18. It's an "issue" that Bush can't use against Kerry.

so, yeah- I'm happy...enough.

[elperromagico]

9. Yeah, and Bush flew around the country like a scared rabbit

while 3,000 human beings died on his watch.

Which is worse in your opinion?

[woofless]

10. All this noise reminds me of a bumper sticker popular w/kids.

" MEAN PEOPLE SUCK "

[Minstrel Boy]

11. No, Kerry is Hubert Humphrey.

At least Dean gets to walk away from his character assassination, but it looks like the Democratic Party, as in 1968, will choose an uninspiring insider hobbled by his support of an unpopular and unwinnable war.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. Humphrey Came Within .05% Of Beating Nixon

and a vote here and and a vote there is key Electoral College states would have given him the election.


He just needs to be a marginally luckier Humphrey...

[Minstrel Boy]

13. I think it could be that close.

But with the likes of Jeb, Diebold and Fox in Bush's corner, he's guaranteed a lot more "luck" than Nixon ever had.

[paulk]

15. Kerry seems to be inspiring an awful lot of Democratic voters,

considering how well he's been doing, so I don't understand how you've arrived at your "uninspiring Washington insider" idea. Being hobbled by his support for an "unpopular and unwinnable war" also hasn't hurt him at the polls. Maybe that's because he hasn't actually supported it?

[Karmadillo]

14. Good summary of Kerry's strengths. Not a Dukakis by any stretch.

The way the mugging of his wife is described here makes him come off as less than lovable, but the issue is dealt with so briefly, who knows what really happened? In the rest of the article, Kerry comes across as someone who might be the kind of President we need.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96aug/beatty/beatty.htm

<edit>

The guy has guts," Jack Blum, who investigated the drug-contra connection for a subcommittee on terrorism that Kerry headed, told me recently. "So many politicians are in the job so people will love them. Kerry is a throwback to senators like Phil Hart, who, even though he came from Michigan, investigated the auto industry. They run for office not so people will love them but to use the powers of office"--in Kerry's case to expose betrayals of the public trust.

In three investigations during his two terms Kerry has charged targets head on. He is a hero of a new biography of the Washington power lawyer and Democratic pooh-bah Clark Clifford. In Friends in High Places: The Rise and Fall of Clark Clifford, Douglas Frantz and David McKean depict Kerry as the only Democratic senator who was willing to investigate the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and Clifford's role in its mega-larcenies. "What are you doing to my old friend Clark Clifford?" an older southern Democrat asked Kerry in a Senate elevator one day. Kerry made no reply, but told an aide accompanying him, "You should hear what they say to me in the cloakroom." Not in public life to be loved, Kerry pressed on. The evidence compiled by his committee helped to close down a huge criminal conspiracy.

Kerry went after Oliver North more than a year before Iran-contra broke, exposing the connection between the U.S.-supported Nicaraguan contras and drug trafficking. And when Arthur Liman, the chief counsel of the Iran-Contra Committee, agreed to a White House demand that the committee be permitted to see only edited portions of North's diaries, Kerry refused to go along with the whitewash and persuaded the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to subpoena the North diaries. This did not endear him to his colleagues, who above everything were eager to avoid impeaching Ronald Reagan.

Kerry's staff did not want him to address the explosive POW-MIA issue--nor was he eager to touch "the third rail in his life," as one friend put it. Still, as a decorated veteran he had political capital on Vietnam, which brought with it responsibility. After exhaustive and emotional hearings a Kerry-chaired special committee issued a unanimous (12-0) report that laid to rest the harrowing and commercially robust fantasy that U.S. POWs are still being held in Indochina. The report opened the door to the normalization of relations with Vietnam.

more...

[pezcore64]

17. lol

yeah, id say hes like Dukakis.


specially after Dean was labled another McGovern just a few months ago when he was on top.