Kerry confronts peril of being labelled Liberal

[T_i_B]

More Rupert Murdoch spin on the primaries. Make of this what you will.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-995952,00.html

EVEN before John Kerry has clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, the Republican high command has begun to brand him a “limousine liberal” out of touch with the American mainstream.

Mr Bush’s re-election team, which had initially focused on Howard Dean, the former Vermont Governor, as an opponent, is now concentrating full-time on the paper trail from Mr Kerry’s 20-year political career in an effort to define him on their own terms before the main battle is joined.

For all his status as a decorated hero of the Vietnam War, Mr Kerry’s domestic record makes him vulnerable to Republican attacks. He has one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate, especially on touchstone issues. He has opposed tax cuts, Pentagon spending increases and the death penalty, while supporting gay rights, gun control and and abortion rights.

Ed Gillespie, the Republican National Committee chairman, has called Mr Kerry “another Massachusetts liberal”, trying to link him with Michael Dukakis, the state’s former Governor trounced by Mr Bush’s father in the 1988 presidential election. Mr Kerry, aware of the trouble he will have in Middle America if the tag sticks, has been at pains to define himself. The portrait he would like moderate voters in swing states to see is of a meat-eating hunter who knows how to use a 12-bore shotgun, a former hardline prosecutor who put crooks behind bars for life and a fiscal hawk who helped to champion balanced federal budgets.

[bowens43]

1. He needs to wear the 'Liberal' label with pride.

[T_i_B]

2. Indeed

I'd much rather have a "limousine liberal" than a limousine conservative, although the cries of limousine liberal, latte liberal, la-de-da liberal and all the other insults from Faux news or any other Murdoch media outlet do get very tiresome indeed after a while.

[Raya]

3. GO KERRY. Keep these RW pigs fuming about your 93% ADA PROGRESSIVE RATING

All the right wing media is going to continue stewing on this
because Kerry is definitely liberal, but they can't seem to make
this into a deal-breaker with the voters.