+Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive democrat candidate, has announced that he will accept Federal Election funds. This is contrary to statements made earlier in the campaign. Yes, it is another flip-flop.
Full article from Boston.com -->Boston.com / News / Politics / Money / Kerry set to disburse millions, get US funds
+The Kerry campaign has bashed the GOP platform. Well, of course, he has. What would anyone expect.
There is, however, one interesting part. Kerry claims that the Bush Administration "let Osama Bin Laden escape." What????? Did Kerry forget that his pal Bill Clinton let OBL escape twice when he failed to "pull the trigger" on him. Liberals do have short memories.
Full article from CNS -->Kerry Campaign Offers Scathing Version of GOP Platform -- 07/20/2004
+There are things the Democrats will say and won't saying during the convention next week. Republicans will be watching closely and ready to respond when they forget about Kerry's voting record and "position change."
Article from CNS -->Republicans Watching What Dems Say - and Don't Say -- 07/20/2004
+Book describes Kerry's failing in national defense. Just in case anyone could forget.
Article from Human Events -->HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: Kerry's Radical Anti-Defense Record by Rowan Scarborough
+Tasty morsels from the Kerry Spot on National Review Online.
TERESA 'IMMIGRANT' LINE FALLS FLAT
These can't be the opening paragraphs to a New York Times article that the Kerry team hoped for:
The crowd was cheering wildly as John Kerry, John Edwards and their spouses danced around one another on the open-air stage at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Then Teresa Heinz Kerry took her turn at the microphone and said, "I am an immigrant, too," clearly making a bid for the many Hispanics in the audience.
This time the applause was lukewarm and there was some head-shaking; many Hispanic families have been in New Mexico for generations and some take a dim view of immigrants
KERRY, DNC TO COORDINATE SPENDING OF FUNDS
Back in 1996, campaign finance watchdogs said that the coordination between the Democratic National Committee and President Clinton's reelection campaign violated the spirit of campaign finance laws, if not the letter. (And more than a few charged that it violated the letter.) Well, apparently this is the Kerry campaign's strategy, and they're not shy about it.
John F. Kerry is poised to take federal campaign money once he is nominated for the presidency next week, according to top campaign finance advisers, a move that will allow him to disburse millions of dollars in leftover campaign cash to Democratic Party operations, effectively augmenting the $75 million he will receive in federal funds. Aides expect the Kerry campaign committee to end up with enough money to make sizable transfers to the Democratic National Committee, state Democratic committees, and possibly the committees working to elect a Democratic Congress. The aim would be to have the committees, especially those in battleground states, air television ads on Kerry's behalf this fall, and finance get-out-the-vote operations on Election Day.
Where are the campaign finance watchdogs? They seem oddly silent about this effort to work around the spending limits that are part of the deal for receiving federal campaign funds.
UPDATE: Another Globe article states, "The Democratic and Republican parties can each spend roughly $16 million in coordination with their presidential nominees." But the first article makes it sound like the DNC will have a lot more than $16 million in leftover Kerry cash coming its way. "The DNC has $63 million in the bank, and its chairman, Terry McAuliffe, has pledged to raise an additional $100 million to benefit Kerry through grass-roots organizing and independent television ads. Kerry is planning to pull his own advertising during the month of August."
Did you expect anything different?
HOW BERGER TIES INTO THE CAMPAIGN
Hugh Hewitt puts the bizarre behavior and possible criminal investigation of Kerry advisor and former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger into the context of the presidential campaign:
First question: Does John Kerry condone this? Berger is a senior advisor to Kerry, so watch if the Dems want this scandal to follow their already struggling nominee to Boston.
The biggest question of all: If you can't trust Democrats with classified documents, how can you trust them with the national security? Answer: You can't, not if you are prudent. The recklessness and fecklessness of the Clinton years on all sorts of matters of highest importance — from the al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, to getting duped by the North Koreans and worked by Arafat — came home to roost with a deadly vengeance on 9/11. Are we going to give the same crowd another run at the controls, for that's what a vote for the Kerry-Moore Democrats means?
This isn't just the possibly criminal action of one man, it is the conduct of the senior White House foreign policy official from the Clinton era, and the action of a confidant and advisor to John Kerry. Had Rice been the one caught tampering with the records of the Bush Adminsitration relating to terrorism, Rice would already have been forced by a baying press to resign, and Bush would be threatened with a Watergate-style meltdown. But it is a pro-Kerry media, so watch for Berger's attempted cover-up to get its own cover-up.
So far the Today Show appears to be attempting to insist this is no big deal, and the new change-of-subject-tactic is to complaing that the timing of the leak is suspicious. (Um, when would this have been good news for Berger and the Kerry campaign to come out? Last week? Next week? Late October?)
I am not sure the "it's no big deal" argument is going to work. If the document in question states, as some reported some time ago,
a warning about "a substantial al Qaeda network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here" and "seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaeda network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls", then Berger has been caught removing documents indicating he and his team dropped the ball on having any chance to stop the 9/11 plot in March 2000.
It just seems extremely implausible that the former National Security Advisor somehow "forgot" the rules about handling classified information, and just happened to "forget" those rules when handling a document that makes him look irresponsible on terror back in March 2000.
KERRY "NEEDS MORE THAN A CATCH PHRASE"
Derrick Z. Jackson is probably one of the Globe's most liberal columnists. He looks at the polling numbers and warns Kerry that "needs more than a catch phrase" at this convention and during this campaign.
There are several other issues that the Democrats have higher credibility on than the Republicans, such as health care and education. But in most polls, such issues currently are hovering around 10 percent in primary importance to voters. The Democratic optimist could take the Washington Post poll and say that the combined 29 percent of voters who say the economy is the most important, the 12 percent who say education is the most important, and the 12 percent who say health care is the most important adds up to 53 percent of voters, and victory. Indeed, the Times poll found that if the election were held today, Kerry would win 49 percent to 44 percent. The Post poll found a dead heat at 46 percent apiece.
But the stabilization in Bush's numbers, despite the continued chaos in Iraq and despite the fact that the economy remains a long way from replacing the jobs lost on his watch, is a warning to Kerry that undecided voters do not yet see a conclusive reason to vote for the challenger. The economy is currently not as bad in the minds of voters as it was during Reagan's or Clinton's runs for the White House.
More interesting topics can be found here -->The Kerry Spot on National Review Online
More later
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