Problem Child
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Purple Haze said:
That's better, buttmunch.
Republicans voting Democrat in '04
- Thread starter Problem Child
- Start date
That's better, buttmunch.
Problem Child
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Hey busybody, post some more cut & paste.
My thread's not wasting enough bandwidth, you google-eyed dick.
My thread's not wasting enough bandwidth, you google-eyed dick.
Silverlily
Kitty Mama - East Coast
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Problem Child said:
Count me in, I even made it official. I'm so disgusted with Bush, I'm past caring which family member I upset.
Hamletmaschine
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Angeline said:. . . But the best primary factoid in the magazine is that Kathy Jordan Sharpton is a former backup singer for James Brown. I wouldn't vote for Al, but she might make an interesting first lady.
Add this to the fact that James Brown is a father-figure to Rev. Al, and I don't think there is any question that he would be the coolest President ever.
Wrong Element
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So Busybody, the guy from U.S. Veteran Dispatch was simultaneously accusing Kerry of being pro-Commie and of illegally executing Commies? The guy ought to pick one argument (idiotic though it may be) and stick to it.
I have seen some conservatives upset about the deficit and spending in general musing that it might not be such a bad thing to have divided government again, since the two branches would cancel out each other's more grandiose ideas and be forced to compromise. Since we're likely to have a Republican House at least through the end of the decade and a Republican Senate at least the next 4 years, the only way to have divided government would be to vote out Bush.
I have seen some conservatives upset about the deficit and spending in general musing that it might not be such a bad thing to have divided government again, since the two branches would cancel out each other's more grandiose ideas and be forced to compromise. Since we're likely to have a Republican House at least through the end of the decade and a Republican Senate at least the next 4 years, the only way to have divided government would be to vote out Bush.
Angeline
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Hamletmaschine said:
They could play this instead of Hail to the Chief.
LET A MAN COME IN AND DO THE POPCORN (PART I)
James Brown
Hey you all look out let a man come in
I got to have fun I'm gonna do my thing
Way over yonder can you dig that mess
The sister standing out there dressed up
In a brand new mini dress
Look hey over there
do you see that boy playing that horn
And dig that soul brother look at him doing the popcorn
Hey everybody I got a brand new start
Hey, hey everybody I got a brand new start
I ain't gonna hurt nobody
I just, I just I just wanna help my heart
Gonna have a ball sure as you're born
Gonna have a ball sure as you're born
I'm gonna dance, dance, dance do the popcorn
Hey look a there hey look a there
Do you see what I see
Everybody doing the popcorn but me
Get back over there with your mini dress
Look out good mama I gotta do my best
Hey over there hey over there look a here
A look a here I got the best band in the land
I just gotta jump back take my stand
I want to ask the fellows don't have no doubt
I just got to lay to lay it right out
Sorry PC for the mini hijack--still, it has got to be better than seeing busybody's post again.
Hamletmaschine
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lavender said:
Well, he's right about that.
Hamletmaschine
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Of what?
teddybear4play
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A nonuple-post.
That beats my record of eight.
I'm devastated.
TB4p
Problem Child
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Lasher said:
I think it's how busybody got out of going to VN by enrolling in the New England Institute For Fancyboys Who Wear Highwater Pants (NEIFFWWHWP).
Spinaroonie
LOOK WHAT I FOUND!
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I have been a Republican my entire life and even named one of my children "Regan", but for the first time in my life I'm going to vote for a blue guy. I've never felt so ashamed since I started that never-ending thread.
Spinaroonie
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Problem Child said:
more like the tl;dr award, am i rite?
busybody..
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THE JUNIOR SENATOR
The New York Times describes how Democrats are ganging up on John Kerry. This is a good paragraph: "at the end of the cold war, Mr. Kerry advocated scaling back the Central Intelligence Agency, but after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he complained about a lack of intelligence capability. In the 1980's, he opposed the death penalty for terrorists who killed Americans abroad, but he now supports the death penalty for terrorist acts. In the 1990's, he joined with Republican colleagues to sponsor proposals to end tenure for public school teachers and allow direct grants to religion-based charities, measures that many Democratic groups opposed. In 1997, he voted to require elderly people with higher incomes to pay a larger share of Medicare premiums."
The New York Times describes how Democrats are ganging up on John Kerry. This is a good paragraph: "at the end of the cold war, Mr. Kerry advocated scaling back the Central Intelligence Agency, but after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he complained about a lack of intelligence capability. In the 1980's, he opposed the death penalty for terrorists who killed Americans abroad, but he now supports the death penalty for terrorist acts. In the 1990's, he joined with Republican colleagues to sponsor proposals to end tenure for public school teachers and allow direct grants to religion-based charities, measures that many Democratic groups opposed. In 1997, he voted to require elderly people with higher incomes to pay a larger share of Medicare premiums."
Thumper
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I also
find it impossible to put this lunatic on ignore.
Sorta like shopping at the local Wal-Mart. I hate the place but every time I go there I see something more white trashy outrageous than the last time.
Something the Republicans should be concerned about. The Iowa caucus drew twice as many registered Democrats out of the woodwork than in 2000. In a bone chilling cold snap too.Why? Maybe they feel motivated this time. Maybe such turnout will be seen in November.
Nationwide there are 72 million registered Democrats and 55 million registered Republicans.
All we have to do is show up at the polls. Getting half of the 46 million Independents would be cool too.
find it impossible to put this lunatic on ignore.
Sorta like shopping at the local Wal-Mart. I hate the place but every time I go there I see something more white trashy outrageous than the last time.
Something the Republicans should be concerned about. The Iowa caucus drew twice as many registered Democrats out of the woodwork than in 2000. In a bone chilling cold snap too.Why? Maybe they feel motivated this time. Maybe such turnout will be seen in November.
Nationwide there are 72 million registered Democrats and 55 million registered Republicans.
All we have to do is show up at the polls. Getting half of the 46 million Independents would be cool too.
busybody..
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January 23, 2004, 4:11 p.m.
Fathoming Kerry
Veteran and analyst.
The voters in Massachusetts honor, and should, the heroism of John Kerry in Vietnam. The voters four years ago honored, correctly, the heroism of John McCain in Vietnam, though they went on to nominate another candidate. What some voters will want to dwell upon is not Kerry, acknowledged hero of Vietnam, but Kerry, analyst of the Vietnam chapter in U.S. history.
When he returned from Vietnam and formed his committee to oppose the war, he went further than to renounce a military and geostrategic operation. In his famous testimony to the congressional committee, he used the kind of language about the architects of that war that he uses now about President Bush. He told Congress, in 1971, that he felt the call to one more mission, which was to "destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more, so that when, thirty years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say, 'Vietnam!' — the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning."
The voters are entitled to ask, "In what way did America 'turn'?" And to ask further, "If the U.S. role in Vietnam was barbaric, our motivations hate and fear, why, thirty-one years later, did John Kerry vote for war in Iraq?" There are American soldiers there who have lost a leg, an arm, a face. Howard Dean is absolutely plainspoken on the question of U.S. guilt. He declares that we had no justifiable reason to go to war in Iraq, and yet Kerry voted to authorize President Bush to go to war. What will he say to veterans of the Iraq war? What he said to veterans of the Vietnam war was, "We cannot consider ourselves America's 'best men' when we are ashamed of and hated for what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia."
President Bush, in his State of the Union Address, did not say that our concern for freedom was the single reason we went to Iraq, but he did say that the deposition of Saddam Hussein was a huge humanitarian blessing. Speaking of Vietnam, Lieutenant Kerry testified, "To attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom is . . . the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart."
The differences between Iraq and Vietnam are considerable, but what they have in common is insufficiently remarked. Our goal in Vietnam was to continue to press the doctrine of Containment — the George Kennan postwar strategy of forbidding further conquests to the enemy, to which end we had fought in Korea. We didn't hesitate to emphasize the difference to human beings between life under Communism, and life elsewhere. In Iraq, we entered the war to press for a strategic goal, the disarmament of Saddam Hussein lest he export his tyranny. And we have not hesitated to emphasize the difference to human beings between life under Saddam, and life elsewhere. What threatens in Iraq is an immobilization brought on by terrorist insurgents, and the possibility even of civil war if the insurgency is not contained.
Is Candidate Kerry declaring that the veteran of the Iraq war is the representative of U.S. dishonor and hypocrisy? When will he say that the Iraq war "turned" America, as he pronounced the Vietnam war to have turned America?
General Clark put his foot in it by drawing attention to his experience as a general, contrasted with John Kerry's as a mere lieutenant. But the two candidates are roughly the same age, both distinguished in their service in Vietnam. What the voters should insist on hearing is their respective views on our commitment in Iraq. Already, Candidate Kerry has voted in the direction of retreat, when he refused to approve the supplementary appropriations requested by Bush. If, when summer comes, the Iraqi engagement is still equivocal, will he treat it as he did Vietnam, as the embodiment of U.S. hate and fear and hypocrisy? Isn't the voter entitled to wonder about the reliability of a President Kerry who deemed past U.S. commitments transitory, en route to becoming dishonorable?
A problem with presidential candidacies is their pursuit of trendy popularity. Kerry tasted deep of this when he paraded before Congress in 1971, condemning the judgment and integrity of three U.S. presidents who had argued the importance of resisting the Communists in Vietnam. And now Kerry has his eyes on a sitting president who with the backing of 77 senators, including John Kerry, set out to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. Does anyone doubt that if the Iraqi insurgency had been quelled six months ago, Candidate Kerry would have applauded the leadership of the president he is so consumed to replace?
Fathoming Kerry
Veteran and analyst.
The voters in Massachusetts honor, and should, the heroism of John Kerry in Vietnam. The voters four years ago honored, correctly, the heroism of John McCain in Vietnam, though they went on to nominate another candidate. What some voters will want to dwell upon is not Kerry, acknowledged hero of Vietnam, but Kerry, analyst of the Vietnam chapter in U.S. history.
When he returned from Vietnam and formed his committee to oppose the war, he went further than to renounce a military and geostrategic operation. In his famous testimony to the congressional committee, he used the kind of language about the architects of that war that he uses now about President Bush. He told Congress, in 1971, that he felt the call to one more mission, which was to "destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more, so that when, thirty years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say, 'Vietnam!' — the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning."
The voters are entitled to ask, "In what way did America 'turn'?" And to ask further, "If the U.S. role in Vietnam was barbaric, our motivations hate and fear, why, thirty-one years later, did John Kerry vote for war in Iraq?" There are American soldiers there who have lost a leg, an arm, a face. Howard Dean is absolutely plainspoken on the question of U.S. guilt. He declares that we had no justifiable reason to go to war in Iraq, and yet Kerry voted to authorize President Bush to go to war. What will he say to veterans of the Iraq war? What he said to veterans of the Vietnam war was, "We cannot consider ourselves America's 'best men' when we are ashamed of and hated for what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia."
President Bush, in his State of the Union Address, did not say that our concern for freedom was the single reason we went to Iraq, but he did say that the deposition of Saddam Hussein was a huge humanitarian blessing. Speaking of Vietnam, Lieutenant Kerry testified, "To attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom is . . . the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart."
The differences between Iraq and Vietnam are considerable, but what they have in common is insufficiently remarked. Our goal in Vietnam was to continue to press the doctrine of Containment — the George Kennan postwar strategy of forbidding further conquests to the enemy, to which end we had fought in Korea. We didn't hesitate to emphasize the difference to human beings between life under Communism, and life elsewhere. In Iraq, we entered the war to press for a strategic goal, the disarmament of Saddam Hussein lest he export his tyranny. And we have not hesitated to emphasize the difference to human beings between life under Saddam, and life elsewhere. What threatens in Iraq is an immobilization brought on by terrorist insurgents, and the possibility even of civil war if the insurgency is not contained.
Is Candidate Kerry declaring that the veteran of the Iraq war is the representative of U.S. dishonor and hypocrisy? When will he say that the Iraq war "turned" America, as he pronounced the Vietnam war to have turned America?
General Clark put his foot in it by drawing attention to his experience as a general, contrasted with John Kerry's as a mere lieutenant. But the two candidates are roughly the same age, both distinguished in their service in Vietnam. What the voters should insist on hearing is their respective views on our commitment in Iraq. Already, Candidate Kerry has voted in the direction of retreat, when he refused to approve the supplementary appropriations requested by Bush. If, when summer comes, the Iraqi engagement is still equivocal, will he treat it as he did Vietnam, as the embodiment of U.S. hate and fear and hypocrisy? Isn't the voter entitled to wonder about the reliability of a President Kerry who deemed past U.S. commitments transitory, en route to becoming dishonorable?
A problem with presidential candidacies is their pursuit of trendy popularity. Kerry tasted deep of this when he paraded before Congress in 1971, condemning the judgment and integrity of three U.S. presidents who had argued the importance of resisting the Communists in Vietnam. And now Kerry has his eyes on a sitting president who with the backing of 77 senators, including John Kerry, set out to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. Does anyone doubt that if the Iraqi insurgency had been quelled six months ago, Candidate Kerry would have applauded the leadership of the president he is so consumed to replace?
ruminator
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Re: I also
I read accounts of the possiblity of people switching registration to participate in the caucus and then returning to original.
Did you see anything that would show that? I wondered if anyone followed up to see if that was the case anywhere.
Thumper said:
I read accounts of the possiblity of people switching registration to participate in the caucus and then returning to original.
Did you see anything that would show that? I wondered if anyone followed up to see if that was the case anywhere.
busybody..
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January 25, 2004
Rivals Mine Kerry Senate Years For Material to Slow Him Down
By TODD S. PURDUM
ASHINGTON, Jan. 24 — The moment John Kerry began to seem like the candidate to watch in the Iowa caucuses, the campaigns of his Democratic rivals Howard Dean and Richard A. Gephardt swiftly used a handful of Mr. Kerry's decade-old Senate votes and statements against ethanol and agricultural subsidies to attack him as not supportive of Iowa's essential industry.
Now that his opponents are moving even more aggressively to slow Mr. Kerry's rise, his 19-year voting record as the junior senator from Massachusetts could loom as his greatest political vulnerability, among Democrats and Republicans alike. The sheer length of Mr. Kerry's service means that he has built a paper trail of positions on education, the military, intelligence and other issues — stands that might have looked one way when he took them but that resonate differently now.
For example, at the end of the cold war, Mr. Kerry advocated scaling back the Central Intelligence Agency, but after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he complained about a lack of intelligence capability. In the 1980's, he opposed the death penalty for terrorists who killed Americans abroad, but he now supports the death penalty for terrorist acts. In the 1990's, he joined with Republican colleagues to sponsor proposals to end tenure for public school teachers and allow direct grants to religion-based charities, measures that many Democratic groups opposed. In 1997, he voted to require elderly people with higher incomes to pay a larger share of Medicare premiums.
The record is susceptible to two broad strands of attack. Mr. Kerry's rival Democrats point to a series of shifting stands on issues, like his qualified praise for the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress and his vote authorizing President Bush to use force in Iraq. They say these are are at odds with his campaign claim to be the "real deal" Democratic alternative to Mr. Bush, capable of "standing up for people and taking on powerful interests," as he says in his stump speech.
"When it was popular to be a Massachusetts liberal, his voting record was that," said Jay Carson, a Dean campaign spokesman. "When it was popular to be for the Iraq war, he was for it. Now it's popular to be against it, and he's against it. This is a voting record that is a big vulnerability against Republicans in the general election. He's all over the place on this stuff."
By contrast, the Republicans seek to paint Mr. Kerry as voting in lock step with, or even to the left of, his fellow Massachusetts Democrat Edward M. Kennedy, long a Republican target and a perennial party fund-raising bugbear.
"Whether it's economic policy, national security policy or social issues, John Kerry is out of sync with most voters," the Republican national chairman, Ed Gillespie, said in a speech on Friday.
Mr. Kerry's spokesman, David Wade, said the senator was "proud of his independence and unashamed that his resistance to orthodoxy leaves him hard to pigeonhole," adding that he had "fought a lifetime for what's right even when it's neither popular nor predictable." He added, "Ed Gillespie may be the last guy left who doesn't realize it's George Bush who's out of touch with the American people."
On a number of issues, including support for gun control, gay rights and the environment, Mr. Kerry has a long, consistent record. He has been a strong opponent of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and has earned a lifetime 96 percent "right" voting record from the League of Conservation Voters. His lifetime ranking from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is 90 percent, while his ranking from the American Conservative Union stands at just 6 percent.
But on many issues, Mr. Kerry has often struck more nuanced, politically cautious positions than those broad rankings might suggest. After the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, Mr. Kerry proclaimed himself "delighted with seeing an institutional shake-up because I think we need one." A few months later, with President Bill Clinton locked in combat with the Republicans, Mr. Kerry voiced some doubts in a closed-door meeting of senators about the wisdom of trying to raise the minimum wage. And as Mr. Kennedy later recalled, he told Mr. Kerry, "If you're not for raising the minimum wage, you don't deserve to call yourself a Democrat."
Mr. Kerry's old friend Adam Walinsky, who helped him draft the strongly worded anti-Vietnam War speech to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that marked the start of his political career in 1971, noted the contrast between Mr. Kerry's outspoken youth and his much more cautious Senate career.
"His politics are not that bold," Mr. Walinsky said. "And it's a really interesting question as to why. Certainly, in the times when I met him and the issues we were involved with then, there was nothing cautious or hesitant."
A Kerry campaign aide said that if the campaign was forced to defend itself, it was "armed with a treasure-trove of votes that prove John Kerry's commitment to strong national defense, a stronger intelligence-gathering operation than George Bush has delivered, and to a long record of fighting the deficit, reforming education and restructuring welfare."
Like every member of a body that takes thousands of votes a year in committee and on the floor, Mr. Kerry has a detailed record of positions on scores of topics — a potential handicap for any incumbent senator running for the presidency. That may be one reason no one has made the leap directly since John F. Kennedy in 1960.
But unlike some of his colleagues with long records to defend — including Mr. Gephardt, the former Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, who dropped out of the race after his disappointing Iowa finish — Mr. Kerry has never been especially popular with his Democratic colleagues in Congress and the party establishment. They have accused him of being too eager to be in the majority, too quick to position his vote for political advantage.
The rap on Mr. Kerry's Senate career, according to fellow senators and Congressional aides, has been that he is more interested in high-profile investigations — like those into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and Gen. Manuel Noriega of Panama — than in the grinding details of legislative procedure. He has deferred to his colleague Mr. Kennedy on most bills involving health and education and has few major bills to his name; when asked to summarize his legislative accomplishments, he often seems to struggle.
But among the details of his legislative record, there is fertile ground for attacks. Mr. Kerry voted for the USA Patriot Act, Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind education bill and the Congressional resolution authorizing the president to use force in Iraq, only to sharply criticize all three once he became a presidential candidate last year. Mr. Kerry counters that his quarrel is with Mr. Bush's execution of the policies, but he struggled for months to explain his shifting stance on the Iraq war.
In 1991, Mr. Kerry voted with a majority of his Democratic Senate colleagues to oppose the first President George Bush's use of force to repel Iraq from Kuwait in the Persian Gulf war, saying that the danger of a yes vote was "that those who vote for use of force will create a situation where it becomes more, rather than less, likely that the force they hope will not be used will, in fact, be used."
By contrast, in the fall of 2002, as he was weighing a presidential run, Mr. Kerry voted with a narrower majority of his Democratic Senate colleagues to grant President Bush the right to use force to overthrow Saddam Hussein if necessary, "because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region."
Like his rival and fellow senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Mr. Kerry has since voted against Mr. Bush's request for billions for reconstruction and military operations in Iraq. He contended that to do so would be to reward the administration for inept execution of pre-war diplomacy that might have avoided the conflict, and of postwar planning for the American occupation.
Some criticism of Mr. Kerry goes back much farther. After the end of the cold war, Mr. Kerry asked why the nation's "vast intelligence apparatus continues to grow even as government resources for new and essential priorities fall far short of what is necessary," as he put it in remarks in the Senate in 1997. He proposed a series of mostly failed measures to cut spending programs for intelligence.
But after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Kerry said on the CBS News program "Face the Nation," "The tragedy is, at the moment, that the single most important weapon for the United States of America is intelligence, and we are weakest, frankly, in that particular area."
In 1998, Mr. Kerry criticized the "stifling bureaucracy" of the public school system and called for an "end to teacher tenure as we know it," incorporating some of his ideas into a bill he co-sponsored with Senator Gordon H. Smith, Republican of Oregon. He also worked with Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, on a bill to allow direct grants to charities, including religious institutions, for certain early childhood programs. Both measures were opposed by teachers unions and other Democratic constituencies.
Yet some of Mr. Kerry's rivals' attacks are more easily refuted. An e-mail critique circulated by the Dean campaign says that as a candidate for Congress in 1972, Mr. Kerry promised to cut defense spending, without noting that the Vietnam War was then still under way and that Mr. Kerry was running not only as a decorated veteran of two tours there but as a national leader of veterans who opposed the war.
Rivals Mine Kerry Senate Years For Material to Slow Him Down
By TODD S. PURDUM
ASHINGTON, Jan. 24 — The moment John Kerry began to seem like the candidate to watch in the Iowa caucuses, the campaigns of his Democratic rivals Howard Dean and Richard A. Gephardt swiftly used a handful of Mr. Kerry's decade-old Senate votes and statements against ethanol and agricultural subsidies to attack him as not supportive of Iowa's essential industry.
Now that his opponents are moving even more aggressively to slow Mr. Kerry's rise, his 19-year voting record as the junior senator from Massachusetts could loom as his greatest political vulnerability, among Democrats and Republicans alike. The sheer length of Mr. Kerry's service means that he has built a paper trail of positions on education, the military, intelligence and other issues — stands that might have looked one way when he took them but that resonate differently now.
For example, at the end of the cold war, Mr. Kerry advocated scaling back the Central Intelligence Agency, but after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he complained about a lack of intelligence capability. In the 1980's, he opposed the death penalty for terrorists who killed Americans abroad, but he now supports the death penalty for terrorist acts. In the 1990's, he joined with Republican colleagues to sponsor proposals to end tenure for public school teachers and allow direct grants to religion-based charities, measures that many Democratic groups opposed. In 1997, he voted to require elderly people with higher incomes to pay a larger share of Medicare premiums.
The record is susceptible to two broad strands of attack. Mr. Kerry's rival Democrats point to a series of shifting stands on issues, like his qualified praise for the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress and his vote authorizing President Bush to use force in Iraq. They say these are are at odds with his campaign claim to be the "real deal" Democratic alternative to Mr. Bush, capable of "standing up for people and taking on powerful interests," as he says in his stump speech.
"When it was popular to be a Massachusetts liberal, his voting record was that," said Jay Carson, a Dean campaign spokesman. "When it was popular to be for the Iraq war, he was for it. Now it's popular to be against it, and he's against it. This is a voting record that is a big vulnerability against Republicans in the general election. He's all over the place on this stuff."
By contrast, the Republicans seek to paint Mr. Kerry as voting in lock step with, or even to the left of, his fellow Massachusetts Democrat Edward M. Kennedy, long a Republican target and a perennial party fund-raising bugbear.
"Whether it's economic policy, national security policy or social issues, John Kerry is out of sync with most voters," the Republican national chairman, Ed Gillespie, said in a speech on Friday.
Mr. Kerry's spokesman, David Wade, said the senator was "proud of his independence and unashamed that his resistance to orthodoxy leaves him hard to pigeonhole," adding that he had "fought a lifetime for what's right even when it's neither popular nor predictable." He added, "Ed Gillespie may be the last guy left who doesn't realize it's George Bush who's out of touch with the American people."
On a number of issues, including support for gun control, gay rights and the environment, Mr. Kerry has a long, consistent record. He has been a strong opponent of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and has earned a lifetime 96 percent "right" voting record from the League of Conservation Voters. His lifetime ranking from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is 90 percent, while his ranking from the American Conservative Union stands at just 6 percent.
But on many issues, Mr. Kerry has often struck more nuanced, politically cautious positions than those broad rankings might suggest. After the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, Mr. Kerry proclaimed himself "delighted with seeing an institutional shake-up because I think we need one." A few months later, with President Bill Clinton locked in combat with the Republicans, Mr. Kerry voiced some doubts in a closed-door meeting of senators about the wisdom of trying to raise the minimum wage. And as Mr. Kennedy later recalled, he told Mr. Kerry, "If you're not for raising the minimum wage, you don't deserve to call yourself a Democrat."
Mr. Kerry's old friend Adam Walinsky, who helped him draft the strongly worded anti-Vietnam War speech to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that marked the start of his political career in 1971, noted the contrast between Mr. Kerry's outspoken youth and his much more cautious Senate career.
"His politics are not that bold," Mr. Walinsky said. "And it's a really interesting question as to why. Certainly, in the times when I met him and the issues we were involved with then, there was nothing cautious or hesitant."
A Kerry campaign aide said that if the campaign was forced to defend itself, it was "armed with a treasure-trove of votes that prove John Kerry's commitment to strong national defense, a stronger intelligence-gathering operation than George Bush has delivered, and to a long record of fighting the deficit, reforming education and restructuring welfare."
Like every member of a body that takes thousands of votes a year in committee and on the floor, Mr. Kerry has a detailed record of positions on scores of topics — a potential handicap for any incumbent senator running for the presidency. That may be one reason no one has made the leap directly since John F. Kennedy in 1960.
But unlike some of his colleagues with long records to defend — including Mr. Gephardt, the former Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, who dropped out of the race after his disappointing Iowa finish — Mr. Kerry has never been especially popular with his Democratic colleagues in Congress and the party establishment. They have accused him of being too eager to be in the majority, too quick to position his vote for political advantage.
The rap on Mr. Kerry's Senate career, according to fellow senators and Congressional aides, has been that he is more interested in high-profile investigations — like those into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and Gen. Manuel Noriega of Panama — than in the grinding details of legislative procedure. He has deferred to his colleague Mr. Kennedy on most bills involving health and education and has few major bills to his name; when asked to summarize his legislative accomplishments, he often seems to struggle.
But among the details of his legislative record, there is fertile ground for attacks. Mr. Kerry voted for the USA Patriot Act, Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind education bill and the Congressional resolution authorizing the president to use force in Iraq, only to sharply criticize all three once he became a presidential candidate last year. Mr. Kerry counters that his quarrel is with Mr. Bush's execution of the policies, but he struggled for months to explain his shifting stance on the Iraq war.
In 1991, Mr. Kerry voted with a majority of his Democratic Senate colleagues to oppose the first President George Bush's use of force to repel Iraq from Kuwait in the Persian Gulf war, saying that the danger of a yes vote was "that those who vote for use of force will create a situation where it becomes more, rather than less, likely that the force they hope will not be used will, in fact, be used."
By contrast, in the fall of 2002, as he was weighing a presidential run, Mr. Kerry voted with a narrower majority of his Democratic Senate colleagues to grant President Bush the right to use force to overthrow Saddam Hussein if necessary, "because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region."
Like his rival and fellow senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Mr. Kerry has since voted against Mr. Bush's request for billions for reconstruction and military operations in Iraq. He contended that to do so would be to reward the administration for inept execution of pre-war diplomacy that might have avoided the conflict, and of postwar planning for the American occupation.
Some criticism of Mr. Kerry goes back much farther. After the end of the cold war, Mr. Kerry asked why the nation's "vast intelligence apparatus continues to grow even as government resources for new and essential priorities fall far short of what is necessary," as he put it in remarks in the Senate in 1997. He proposed a series of mostly failed measures to cut spending programs for intelligence.
But after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Kerry said on the CBS News program "Face the Nation," "The tragedy is, at the moment, that the single most important weapon for the United States of America is intelligence, and we are weakest, frankly, in that particular area."
In 1998, Mr. Kerry criticized the "stifling bureaucracy" of the public school system and called for an "end to teacher tenure as we know it," incorporating some of his ideas into a bill he co-sponsored with Senator Gordon H. Smith, Republican of Oregon. He also worked with Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, on a bill to allow direct grants to charities, including religious institutions, for certain early childhood programs. Both measures were opposed by teachers unions and other Democratic constituencies.
Yet some of Mr. Kerry's rivals' attacks are more easily refuted. An e-mail critique circulated by the Dean campaign says that as a candidate for Congress in 1972, Mr. Kerry promised to cut defense spending, without noting that the Vietnam War was then still under way and that Mr. Kerry was running not only as a decorated veteran of two tours there but as a national leader of veterans who opposed the war.
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