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News :: Elections & Legislation |
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Nader Says Kerry 'Blew It,' Ensuring Bush Will Win Race |
Current rating: 0 |
by Miles Benson
(No verified email address) |
10 Sep 2004
|
"The telltale sign" of looming defeat is the Democrats' failure to register 9 million black voters, Nader told reporters.
Kerry "blew it," Nader said, by neglecting the Democratic Party's historic roots.
"The biggest winning strategy for the Kerry campaign is the living wage. One of every three workers doesn't make a living wage. That is what the Democratic Party used to stand for." |
WASHINGTON -- Democrat John Kerry has already lost the 2004 presidential race and the country should get ready for another four years of President Bush's leadership, Ralph Nader said Thursday.
"Bush is mocking him, he's taunting him," Nader said. "There's no strategy by the Democrats."
Nader, battling to get on ballots as an independent presidential candidate, predicted Bush would win by a margin so large that his own candidacy would not be seen as a factor in the outcome. Democratic leaders blamed Nader for former Vice President Al Gore's loss to Bush in 2000.
"The telltale sign" of looming defeat is the Democrats' failure to register 9 million black voters, Nader told reporters.
"They're going to lose it because John Kerry has surrounded himself with corporate consultants who represent some of the seediest and most craven companies and industries, and they are not letting him think for himself," said Nader, whose fight against corporate influence over government and politics is his own rationale for running.
Kerry "blew it," Nader said, by neglecting the Democratic Party's historic roots.
"The biggest winning strategy for the Kerry campaign is the living wage. One of every three workers doesn't make a living wage. That is what the Democratic Party used to stand for."
With just under eight weeks remaining before Election Day, Nader said Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., have "lost the clarity of being an alternative to Bush and Cheney, even though this is the most vulnerable administration in many years."
The Kerry campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Political analysts, however, think the contest is far from over.
"My guess is that this is Ralph Nader seeking revenge against Democrats for their attacks on him and keeping him off the ballot in a number of states," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist.
"It's also Nader's attempt to get more Kerry people to cast protest votes for him," Sabato said, calling this "a self-serving analysis." If Nader convinces Kerry supporters that their candidate can't win, "they can vote for Nader without guilt."
Right now, things look grim for Kerry, Sabato acknowledged. "But in early August," he added, "most analysts thought Bush was done for. So we've got 54 days to go and a lot could happen and probably will. This is a wild year. I wouldn't bet a nickel on the election results right now."
But Kerry and the Democrats have indeed failed to make a strong effort to register black voters, said Ron Walters, a black political activist and University of Maryland political scientist.
"Nader is absolutely right about this," Walters said. "It's one of those subterranean stories nobody wants to talk about because Kerry could lose."
While Democrats have raised enormous amounts of money in this campaign, Walters said, money is only "trickling in" to traditional black voter-registration groups.
The independent political organizations known as 527s raised $150 million, he said, "but they have not used it very effectively -- they have tried to substitute people with Palm Pilots and Blackberries for the success we had over the years."
Walters said the problem was a hot topic of behind-the-scenes discussion Thursday at a Congressional Black Caucus Town Hall Meeting, part of a three-day legislative conference that he said drew 35,000 attendees.
Thomas Mann, an analyst at the Brookings Institution, called Nader's comments "utterly foolish."
"The election remains intensely competitive, with Kerry benefiting from the war in Iraq and the economy, and Bush, thus far, the better campaign. It's too close to call," Mann said.
Mann nonetheless said that he "leans toward" a Kerry victory.
Georgetown University political scientist Stephen Wayne took issue with Nader's remarks.
"I don't think the election has been decided yet," Wayne said, although he thinks Bush holds the advantage at the moment. "Kerry does have his work cut out for him and I wouldn't bet a lot of money on him, but I don't think he'll lose big, if he loses."
© Copyright 2004 The Times-Picayune
http://www.nola.com |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
Comments
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Re: Nader Says Kerry 'Blew It,' Ensuring Bush Will Win Race |
by Doug Ireland
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
10 Sep 2004
|
The howls of anger and distress coming from Democrats disgusted with the toothless and meandering Kerry campaign have gone aggressively public as the Kerry meltdown becomes more obvious each day.
Yesterday, on CNN's Inside Politics, Jesse Jackson delivered a blistering attack on the Kerry campaign for running away from the Democratic base and the issues it cares about. Jesse cited, among other things a daylong West Virginia Rainbow/labor "Invest in America" jobs rally at which Jesse spoke at yesterday, that he said drew 30,000 folks with a raft of entertainers like Willie Nelson and Judy Collins.. Jesse was furious that Kerry had ducked the rally, even though he was campaigning only 30 miles away. Jesse sneered at the inadequacy of the Kerry campaign's much-publicized "shakeup" and its whitebread, retread Clintonista imports, snarling that "it can't be just a vanilla shake." (Jesse's comments were notable for the vehemence of his tone and rhetoric, even talking airhead Judy Woodruff seemed taken aback--but you'll search in vain on the CNN website for any mention of the interview, for the only Jackson it mentions in this morning's news is Janet, with yet another story on her exposed boobs. Even the AP didn't cover Jesse's televised fireworks.)
Jesse's right-on slamming of the top-heavy-with-consultants Kerry operation was echoed by my old friend Hank Sheinkopf--a well-known veteran Democratic campaign consultant himself, Hank worked on the Clinton and Gore campaigns as well as on many races in the South--in a New York Observer diatribe that flayed the consultant-ocracy now running the party and JFK's downward-slaloming campaign. With wealthy Kerry message czar Bob Shrum obviously among those he had in mind, Hank raged that "what really motivates these never-out-of-work, never-in-pain and never-needy operatives is their next high-paying gig. Winning matters not; nor does losing. Chance the gardener would have loved it. Speak in platitudes but, unlike Chance, take the dough—and take it quickly, even if it means breaking the fingers, the hearts and the reputations of those who might show sufficient idealism to want to do otherwise." As a result, the Democrats, Sheinkopf lamented, "have become an almost permanent minority party" (a view I share, and then some).
Confirming the Jesse/Sheinkopf diagnosis, and explaining why the new Kerry imports have a tin ear for the electorate's mood, in this morning's Washington Post Jeff Birnbaum -- in an article headlined "Lobbyists Take Leave to Advise Kerry Campaign" -- discloses that the whole bunch is on the payroll of Corporate America for big bucks. Joel Johnson is the strategist for the asbestos lobby's attempt to screw its victims out of compensation, and a lobbyist for Big Pharma, and his firm partners with another lobby shop headed by Tom DeLay's ex-chief of staff, and shares offices with the GOP firm. Michael Whouley has been the subject of a raft of puff pieces by the political press corps--but how many of them told you that Whouley is on the payroll of General Motors, the insurance industry, and Microsoft to seek special interest loopholes for their benefit? Whouley also partners with a GOP lobby shop that raises a lot of money for the Bush campaign. Joe Lockhart and Howard Wolfson are partners in a lobbying operation that represents pharmaceutical behemoth Pfizer, Fannie Mae, and the regional telephone companies, and Lockhart has also been on the Microsoft payroll.
With all these Kerry-hired hacks supping at the corporate trough, is it any wonder that the only slogan they've come up with so far is the oh-so-feeble "W stands for Wrong"?
The WashPost didn't mention it in today's story, but the lobbyist who has the most clout within the Kerry campaign is the candidate's own brother, Cameron. Cam Kerry's Boston law-lobbying shop -- Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo -- advertises communications law among its areas of expertise and lobbies on behalf of wireless-industry clients such as AT&T Wireless Service, XO Communications Inc. and the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. CTIA is the trade association of the wireless industry. The Center for Public Integrity found that CTIA-affiliated companies and their employees have contributed at least $152,000 to Kerry's Senate campaigns, and that since 1999 Kerry has taken positions that closely reflect the legislative agenda of CTIA. He sponsored two bills that CTIA lobbied for and co-sponsored six more. Not only do Kerry’s assiduous efforts on behalf of the telecommunications industry help his brother’s clients, a big chunk of the combined fortune of Kerry and his wife — perhaps as much as $47.1 million — is in telecommunications stock affected by the pro-CTIA legislation Kerry has carried.
(Cam Kerry, by the way, is an Orthodox Jew who has been responsible more than any other for his brother's slavishly pro-Sharon positions, and paid a visit to Israel in the middle of the campaign. When the World Court ruled that that the Israeli apartheid "Wall of Shame" hemming in the Palestinians was illegal and should be dismantled, candidate Kerry attacked the Court for its ruling!)
At all events, if all of you have been wondering why the Kerry campaign has lacked appeal to working people, and can't come up with a bold populist program to challenge Bush and his corporate thieves and win the election, just look at the lobbyists who surround the candidate, including his brother. Old Uncle Karl wasn't wrong: people perform according to their class interests. And once the campaign is over, all those hacks will go back to their lobby shops and keep sucking up to Corporate America to swell their bank accounts.
Ultimately, though, the old Sicilian saying has never been truer than as a diagnosis of what's wrong with the Kerry campaign: the fish stinks from the head.
Coyyright 2004 Direland
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/ |
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Re: Nader Says Kerry 'Blew It,' Ensuring Bush Will Win Race |
by Anna V. Epelbaum
aepelbaum (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
10 Sep 2004
|
How come that Kerry 'blew it" with minorities, or with Black in particular? Bush is offering to minorities mainly deaths in his oncoming new wars if re-elected. Jessy Jackson was and is some kind of parody to racial equality and fights for mutual behalf of 'to have not' of different races. He is an associate of Clintons policies, where our 'marxist', future Catharine The Great was and is promoting the slogan " Not have of all races fight each other!' instead of the real marxist's slogan 'not to have of all races unify together to fight for your rights!' Even less than Whites of this country Blacks of this country need invasive injust wars to independent nations , which Bush regime has had already and would have even more, if Bush is re-elected.
"More jobs here, not more deaths abroad on behalf of Bush's family and his cronies financial profits!' This thing minority youngsters can expect from oncoming Kerry government, not from Bush's government.
'National affordable healthcare, not there further increase of national deficit for new wars!' And this slogan can also be expected from Kerry's government , not Bush's. So, what is Jessy Jackson doing trying to use his influence among Black voters to ruin Kerry's victory? The answer is: 'He is deliberately betraying interests and behalf of his constituents, who trust him!!' Jessy Jackson should be , therefore, out of trust and out of constituents in this community, which he is betraying by his actions!!! |
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Re: Nader Says Kerry 'Blew It,' Ensuring Bush Will Win Race |
by aepelbaum
aepelbaum (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
10 Sep 2004
|
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The behavior of Nader, who is practically bringing the re-election of Bush and trying to convince us that we 'should not trust our own eyes watching him' is also not okay. If he is so much concern with consumers interests, he should perfectly understand that consumers interests are first of all and most of all to have peace and prosperity at home , not invasive wars abroad on behalf of only few the richest of this country!! |
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