Just over a year ago I wrote a column during the Democraticprimaries that compared politicians to seducers whose onlyambitions were the pants of the electorate.
I concluded with "In the case of politics, though, pardonmy cynicism, but we will always be screwed no matter whowins."
My, what a difference thirteen months makes.
Time to get out the flip-flops and wear them proudly.
For countless numbers, 2004 was a political awakening.It's been a year when many of us have turned on, tuned in,and dropped out of the cult of political pessimism andignorance.
The "Anybody But Bush" (ABB) movement may be strong,but it certainly takes more than an overwhelming disdain for thisadministration to energize so many people. It requires anintelligent leader with answers, plans and the strength to face thetrial by fire of a Karl Rove campaign.
Looking back to that time of the primaries, John Kerry is thechoice.
In the words of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, after that first debateKerry's supporters "suddenly had reason to feel likewinners." Kerry emerged as not just a plug-and-play, ABBcandidate. Supporters were no longer voting against Bush, but forKerry.
Despite the spinmeisters' wicked weavings of webs ofdistortion in regards to Kerry's senate record, astraightforward look at some of his accomplishments over the pasttwenty years reveals plenty that people of various politicalstripes can applaud:
While this administration has driven up record deficits,Kerry's record shows a commitment to fiscal discipline. In1993 he co-sponsored the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings balanced budget anddeficit reduction bill. In 1997 he voted for the Balanced BudgetAct.
Kerry worked with Senator John McCain in investigatingpossibilities of missing POWs in Vietnam. Following that, he andMcCain helped worked to lift the trade embargo and normalizerelations with Vietnam.
Early in his senate career, Kerry and Indiana's ownSenator Richard Lugar traveled to the Philippines to oversee itsDemocratic election. Lugar would praise Kerry in his 1988 bookLetters to the Next President. According to the Boston Globe, Lugarsaid "He was not one of the dissident types. I did not see in himsomeone who was out there going after President Reagan, out after aRepublican president."
In 1993 his amendment to the Crime Control bill allotted $150million to hire 100,000 new police officers.
Kerry oversaw the hearings that revealed the Bank of Credit andCommerce International (BCCI) scandal – the greatest bankingscandal in modern times.
And then there's the gems that some of us can look at andyell "hell yeah!":
Wal-Mart wage slaves take note: Kerry helped push to raise theminimum wage to $5.15. He's vowed to work to raise it to $7by 2007.
Kerry was crucial in uncovering the Iran-Contra scandal. He evenjoined with a political opposite – Jesse Helms – toinvestigate Contra drug connections. (Helms would not toleratedrugs flowing into the US, even if our allies were doing it.) In1989, Kerry published a report claiming that the CIA and other USorganizations had ignored the contras' drug trade. Subsequentinvestigations have validated Kerry's findings.
When Kerry voted against the 1996 defense of marriage act hesaid, "I will vote against this bill, though I am not forsame-sex marriage, because I believe that this debate isfundamentally ugly, and it is fundamentally political, and it isfundamentally flawed… The truth that we know, whichtoday's exercise ignores, is that marriages fall apart in theUnited States, not because men and women are under siege by a massmovement of men marrying men or women marrying women. Marriagesfall apart because men and women don't stay married. The realthreat comes from the attitudes of many men and women married toeach other and from the relationships of people in the oppositesex, not the same sex. Yet, this legislation is directed atsomething that has not happened and which needs no Federalintervention." That still holds true as much today as it dideight years ago.
Among these accomplishments one theme seems to pop uprepeatedly: a constant bipartisanship. It's clear in thiselection who's the uniter and who's the divider. Lugar,McCain, and Helms could join with Kerry to accomplish common goals– a practice we need to readopt today in our battle withAl-Qaeda.
Yes, come election night Indiana will be as red as thosedelicious Altoid apple sours. But I'll still show up at thepolls so that fifty years from now I can tell my grandchildren thatthe first vote I ever cast was for John Kerry.
Write to David at
swimminginbrokenglass@gmail.com
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