With his recent "Jobs First" bus tour of Midwestern swing states, John Kerry kicked off his general election campaign. About the same time Al Gore threw his not inconsiderable weight behind the Kerry election enterprise, in addition to $4 million left over from Gore's failed effort four years ago. So OK, the race is on. Some random thoughts as Kerry leaves the gate...
Kerry started out with talk about jobs. "This administration," he said, "is standing by while the jobs are being outsourced, the jobs are going overseas." He insistently did not say that in his 20 years as a U.S. senator he has voted against just about every tax-reduction measure that - in the words of Cato Institute senior fellow Stephen Moore - "would have made the U.S. a friendlier place for capital investment and new jobs."
In fact, Kerry spent much of his time (a) blasting (several newspapers termed it "targeting") Vice President Cheney, (b) ripping Cheney's and President Bush's Vietnam-era records, and (most of his time) (c) backing and filling about his own actions in Vietnam and thereafter his words and actions in the anti-war movement with the likes of Jane Fonda. He edged toward apologies for the latter when he termed his extremist rhetoric about alleged war crimes by American troops "a little bit excessive" and "a little bit over the top."
Elsewhere, Kerry has gone after Bush for an alleged "secret deal" with the Saudis to lower oil prices before the November elections. He also holds Bush responsible for higher gasoline prices. Given that Kerry has advocated raising the federal gasoline tax by 50 cents a gallon, questions abound about his own commitment to lower prices at the pump.
Recalling Jimmy Carter's consultation with daughter Amy about The Bomb, Kerry consulted with Jesse Jackson and then proclaimed that the Bush administration's approach to Iraq is "gridlocked by its own ideology and its own arrogance."
As a Washington Post editorial put it, "Where once he named Democracy as a task to be completed, and the alternative to 'cutting and running' or a 'false success,' Kerry now says Democracy is optional. Where once he warned against setting the conditions for an early but irresponsible withdrawal of U.S. forces, now he does so himself by defining the exit standard as 'stability,' a term that could describe Saudi Arabia or Iran - or the Iraq of Saddam Hussein."