Kerry can't hide from liberal label

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041017/news_lz1e17caldwel.html



Kerry can't hide from liberal label
http://www.signonsandiego.com/images/black.gif By Robert J. Caldwell
October 17, 2004

"I'm a liberal and proud of it. http://www.signonsandiego.com/images/t.gifhttp://www.signonsandiego.com/images/t.gifSen. John Kerry to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, 1991 "Labels don't mean anything." Sen. John Kerry in the second debate with President Bush, 2004 Unfortunately for Democrat John Kerry, labels DO mean something. Kerry's career-long affiliation with a political ideology built on big government, high taxes and a weak record on national defense and foreign policy is the ball and chain shackled to his presidential campaign. It's George W. Bush's ace in the hole in the president's drive to persuade an evenly divided electorate that Kerry is out of step with mainstream political values and represents a risk not worth taking. Kerry's strategy, so evident in all three presidential debates, is to disown liberalism. In its place, Kerry would have us believe that he's a centrist anchored squarely in the middle of the American political spectrum. That's not what the abundantly documented record of Kerry's 19 years in the U.S. Senate shows.

The non-partisan National Journal magazine conducted an exhaustively detailed review of all Senate votes during 2003. Its conclusion: Massachusetts Sen. John Forbes Kerry had compiled the most liberal voting record of any member of the U.S. Senate. More liberal, by several degrees, than even that of the Senate's liberal icon, Ted Kennedy.

And this as Kerry prepared to run for president as a moderate centrist. Was 2003 a Kerry aberration? Hardly. Americans for Democratic Action has been rating every member of Congress on liberalism's key quotients since the 1940s. Its lifetime rating for the fervently liberal Ted Kennedy is 90 percent. Kerry's lifetime ADA rating is 92 percent.

The ADA's ideological opposite is the American Conservative Union. The ACU rates the votes of members of Congress on their fealty to such politically conservative principles as restraining government, resisting higher taxes and maintaining a strong national defense. Kerry's lifetime ACU rating: 5 percent.

Congressional Quarterly, the encyclopedic and non-partisan chronicler of what Congress does and how its members vote, found that Kerry voted 100 percent of the time with Ted Kennedy on major legislation in 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1998 and 1999. On taxes and spending, Kerry has a lifetime rating of only 18.7 percent from the National Taxpayers Union. Kerry's average rating from Americans for Tax Reform from 1999-2003 is 12.5 percent. Citizens Against Government Waste gave Kerry a paltry 5 percent rating in 2001 and a 1990-2001 average of just 26 percent.

On abortion, Kerry earned a 100 percent rating from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League for every year from 1995 through 2002. This tally includes six votes against legislation banning partial-birth abortions, a gruesome procedure denounced by the Vatican as "an incredibly brutal act of aggression against innocent human life." NARAL's opposite, the National Right to Life Committee, gives Kerry a rating of 0.

The AFL-CIO puts Kerry's big labor voting record at 100 percent for five of the last 19 years and an average of 89 percent from 1985 through 2001.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, defender of the nation's free enterprise, free market economy, records Kerry's lifetime record of support as a weak 35 percent.

Kerry poses today as a hunter, gun owner and defender of the Second Amendment's constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. The National Rifle Association, with its 4 million members, isn't fooled. The NRA gives Kerry a failing F on gun-rights legislation and last week endorsed Bush for president.

Kerry's convenient aversion to labels in a tight presidential election doesn't conceal his reflexive liberalism. His health care plan would undeniably move government toward a central role as arbiter and regulator of medical care for a majority of Americans.

Kerry's economic nostrums are less pro-growth than redistributionist. His spending plans would add an eye-popping $2.3 trillion to the federal budget over a decade with no convincing explanation of how this would be paid for. Kerry proposes higher taxes only for the "rich," ignoring the reality that the top 10 percent of income earners already pay two-thirds of all federal individual income taxes.

On defense and foreign policy, Kerry promises a bigger Army and a more effective war against terrorism, assuming that any U.S. military action passes his undefined "global test." But Kerry's newly acquired advocacy of a larger, stronger military clashes glaringly with his two-decade record of voting against 40 of the weapons systems that currently arm America's forces.

As for Kerry's global test, recall 1991. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait and threatened to seize a quarter of the world's oil reserves. Thirty-four nations, including a half dozen Arab countries, had joined the United States in sending military forces to the Persian Gulf to liberate Kuwait. The United Nations Security Council had voted to authorize military action. Then-President George H.W. Bush asked Congress to approve the use of force. The impeccably liberal John Kerry voted no.

Referring to Kerry's liberal record, President George W. Bush quotes boxing great Joe Louis who said of challenger Billy Conn: "He can run, but he can't hide." Exactly so.

Liberals will vote for a "liberal" - Kerry. Just as morons will vote for a "moron" - Bush. What's so bad about that?

Liberals will vote for a "liberal" - Kerry. Just as morons will vote for a "moron" - Bush. What's so bad about that?

There is nothing wrong with that unless you are a liberal claiming not to be so liberal. Its like a dog claiming he is a cat when everyone knows he is a dog.

There is nothing wrong with that unless you are a liberal claiming not to be so liberal. Its like a dog claiming he is a cat when everyone knows he is a dog.
Just as the Bush voters shouldn't be afraid of admitting that they're morons, everyone's cool then :thumbsup:

Fortunately there are still more people who work for a living then those looking for a hand out. That alone is enough to keep the loser libs out of the white house.













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Just as the Bush voters shouldn't be afraid of admitting that they're morons, everyone's cool then :thumbsup:

Is that the best you can do? Throw some more insults while you are at it. You offer nothing to this topic.

You offer nothing to this topic.
The topic offered little to begin with... :)

Liberals are called liberals - because're they're liberals. And this is news? Figures, that Bush supporters would have to have somebody write an article to point out the obvious to them.

Is that the best you can do? Throw some more insults while you are at it. You offer nothing to this topic.
I'd love to but Bush does enough damage to himself as it is. My posts offer as much as your copy-pasting other people's opinions.
Quit being so aggrivated....it's not good for you :thumbsup:

Quit being so aggrivated....it's not good for you :thumbsup:

It adds color to my skin so it has to be good for me. :grinyes:


The topic offered little to begin with... :)

Liberals are called liberals - because're they're liberals. And this is news? Figures, that Bush supporters would have to have somebody write an article to point out the obvious to them.

2Stroke what I am saying is that Kerry is trying to hide what he is. He is pretending to be more in the middle than he is. Kerry knows being a left leaning lib like he is will hurt him, so he acts like something he isn't.

i think it becomes more and more imperative everyday to do away with the "liberal/conservative" labels once and for all.

it really is all very subjective. for instance, to a socialist, a democrat looks conservative, and too a libertarian, a republican looks liberal.

for Kerry to try to avoid the liberal label is ridiculous, almost as much so as Bush supporters making such a big about it.

it's a very old ploy by the Republicans to try to pretend that 'liberal' means 'communist'.Sorry,but it doesn't.The democrats make no secret of the fact that they are a left-of centre party.Fortunately, they are not as far to the left as the men who control Bush are out to the right.

Neither extreme left nor extreme right is good for a nation.If you value you freedom, vote for the party closest to the centre. The one that is not fronted by Bush.

Kerry appeals to people that think welfare is a lifestyle choice.

It adds color to my skin so it has to be good for me. :grinyes:
Well I sure do hope your enjoying those purple shorts :grinno:

I'd like Kerry to stop making the veterans ashamed by his bragging what a hero he is. People did braver stuff every day there, never got medals, and didn't want them. Medals were a joke to most people, something that crappy young officers like Kerry put themselves in for. It was called "ticket-punching" and ticket-punchers were as likely to be shot by their own men as by the enemy. Like the crewman said on tv, Kerry might have banged his head on the bulkhead, but he never saw any heroism.

I'd like Kerry to stop making the veterans ashamed by his bragging what a hero he is. People did braver stuff every day there, never got medals, and didn't want them. Medals were a joke to most people, something that crappy young officers like Kerry put themselves in for. It was called "ticket-punching" and ticket-punchers were as likely to be shot by their own men as by the enemy. Like the crewman said on tv, Kerry might have banged his head on the bulkhead, but he never saw any heroism.

what does any of that have to do with anything else on this thread?

OK, I put it in the context that Kerry is a putz, as are most liberals. But I don't mean you, of course