With Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) running away with the Democratic nomination it has become commonplace for opponents to level political broadsides in his direction. Last Wednesday was worrisome though. With Ed Gillespie (Republican National Committee Chair) and Ken Mehlman (Bush-Cheney 2004 Campaign Manager) off on a duck hunting vacation with Dick Cheney, where would we get our daily dose of Kerry-bashing?
It turned out to be as easy as opening the Daily to read Adam Schultz's "Kerry's 'Real Deal' is a real sham." In the interest of full disclosure, both of us are interns on the Kerry campaign, but that is only part of why we are responding to Mr. Schultz's article. The most important reason for this viewpoint is to correct the record. Mr. Schultz's rabid attacks distorted the Senator's record, left out important facts, and made arguments that have no basis in reality.
The first claim that Mr. Schultz makes concerns Senator Kerry's vote on the "resolution giving Pres. Bush a blank check to invade Iraq." Calling Kerry's vote a matter of political expediency misses the intricacies of the issue. In doing so, he dishonors Kerry's concern as a Vietnam veteran, who watched fellow soldiers die in battle, for the men and women of the armed forces.
Senator Kerry voted for the resolution after being assured by Colin Powell that there would be no rush to war and that the goal was to get WMD inspectors back into Iraq. The resolution was also not the "blank check," as Mr. Schultz calls it. The resolution stipulated that the President must attempt all paths of international diplomacy before using force in Iraq. Only later did we discover that the President lied about the reasons force was "necessary" and had no intention of exhausting all diplomatic options. There is no flip-flop here as Mr. Schultz insinuates. John Kerry has always considered sending American troops into battle a last resort.
Mr. Schultz's next attack is over Kerry's vote for the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Senator Kerry joined his colleague Ted Kennedy, Congress's leading voice for education, in voting for this bill. It is easy for Mr. Schultz to be a Monday morning quarterback, but when Kerry voted in January of 2002, he had no way to know that Bush would drastically under-fund NCLB, hanging poor schools out to dry. That is why Kerry rails against it today as another example of Bush's domestic policy failures.
Mr. Schultz largely avoids talking about Kerry's environmental record. The one issue he raises is that Kerry cannot be considered a good environmentalist because he voted against using force in the Persian Gulf in 1991. Scratching your head? We did too. He argues that Kerry's voting "no" on the war while Saddam Hussein was "torching oil fields and spilling millions of gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf" was environmentally inexcusable. The problem is the vote was in January and Saddam did not begin to wreak environmental havoc until March. Anyway, it was a wise decision to skirt the topic of the environment, because Kerry has an outstanding environmental record. His commitment to environmental causes goes back more then 30 years to when he was one of the founders of Earth Day. John Kerry has fought Bush and corporate polluters to protect clean air and water standards, and when Bush wanted to drill for oil in Alaska, Kerry led the fight to stop him in the Senate. Furthermore, the League of Conservation Voters endorsed Kerry for President before the New Hampshire primary, the earliest endorsement they have ever issued.
Moving on to the Patriot Act, Mr. Schultz attacks Senator Kerry for denouncing John Ashcroft after voting for the bill. We would like to mention that he voted for this bill alongside his colleagues, the late Senator Wellstone, and Senator Kennedy. In the aftermath of 9/11, it was obvious that better communication between the intelligence agencies was necessary in order to prevent future tragedies. This was the main purpose of the Patriot Act, and is what Kerry voted to support. The main problem is not the bill itself. The problem is the abuse of civil liberties by John Ashcroft and the Justice Department. The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in federal court last July, the first in a series of litigations against Ashcroft's Justice Department. It is these abuses of the Patriot Act and broader attacks on civil liberties that Kerry rightfully calls Ashcroft out on.
Mr. Schultz's viewpoint mentions Kerry only beating Bush by a few points in an unnamed poll on February 3. For what it is worth, the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Kerry trouncing Bush, 51% to 43%. It is still very early in the election year, but Kerry's electability is more than just perceived.
This brings us to where John Kerry's extraordinary rise in popularity originates. Is it Kerry's detailed platform for a "Real Deal" to replace the extreme policies of the Bush administration? Or is it, as Mr. Schultz suggests, that a supposed endorsement from CNN has convinced Americans to select John Kerry over the other Democratic contenders?
Mr. Schultz makes the latter claim without offering any supporting empirical evidence. He also says that this "endorsement" from CNN is what rocketed Gov. Dean to the top of the polls last summer and fall, and boosted Kerry's popularity since the Iowa Caucuses. In saying this he degrades the efforts of the supporters and volunteers who have worked tirelessly for their candidates. It is their passion that creates political juggernauts, not the machinations that go on in the production room of a news network.
The fact is that most Americans are as likely to get their news from the Daily Show or the loud guy at the water cooler as they are from CNN. Americans are independent people who make up their own minds. Kerry's 14 wins in 16 contests are not based on the "choice of a few Iowans" as Mr. Schultz alleges. They are based on the careful votes of the more than one million Democrats and Independents who have voted for Kerry because of his message on jobs, health care, education, the environment, his military and foreign policy experience and his ability to beat Bush.
Mr. Schultz is trying to take complicated, evolving issues and paint them as black and white. It is Senator Kerry's knowledge, experience, and ability to deal with these complex issues that make him so qualified to be President. In his viewpoint, Mr. Schultz makes incorrect assumptions and unproven claims about Kerry's record and ideas for America's future. This is exactly what the Democratic Party does not need. We know that when the nomination is decided, the Bush re-election team will attack with its own false accusations and slander. For now we need to keep it a civil debate and focus on the most pressing concern - defeating George Bush in November.
Aaron Banks is a sophomore majoring in Political Science and Art History. Nick Odato is a sophomore majoring in Political Science and Economics.
More from The Tufts Daily
