How to run successfully when they label one a liberal.

[Pepperbelly]

This morning, I heard an interview on my local NPR with Senator Dale Bumpers, one of the finest liberal lions of the Senate for years and years. Most of you may be more familiar with him from his work as Clinton's lawyer in the Impeachment Trial. Dale first ran for office in 1970 to become Governor of Arkansas. From that first election on, there was not a single campaign against Dale that did not use the word "liberal" as its foundation.

And Dale won and won and won.

Of course, if you caught him during the impeachment, you know how powerful a speaker ... of should I say orator he is but Dale got so used to dealing with it that he could not believe how difficult it seemed for Kerry to dispatch it. Based on how Dale always handled it, during the first debate, John Kerry should have said something like this while looking directly at Bush:

"ou know, if you took away George Bush's ability to campaign against positions I never advocated and his use of the word "liberal", he'd be so tongue-tied that all he could say would be "Good morning."

Dale was good at deflecting it and in fact, was pretty damned proud of being a liberal.

[libbygurl]

1. Wish he was advisor to Kerry campaign! Kerry kept running away

from the "liberal" tag which B/C glued onto him.

[Hello_Kitty]

2. Good one. I hated it when John Kerry was defensive about the term.

Liberal means caring about people and the environment. That's a bad thing? I wear the label proudly.

[Menshevik]

3. Dale Bumpers is awesome

Saw him speak at a Clark rally in NH...great guy.

[Pepperbelly]

4. Dale could've told him exactly how to handle it. No big shakes for him.

He handled it in every single election.