Res Publica 2005

"Labels don't mean anything."

Sen. John Kerry in the second debate with President Bush, 2004

Unfortunately for Democrat John Kerry, labels DO mean something. Kerry's career-long affiliation with a political ideology built on big government, high taxes and a weak record on national defense and foreign policy is the ball and chain shackled to his presidential campaign. It's George W. Bush's ace in the hole in the president's drive to persuade an evenly divided electorate that Kerry is out of step with mainstream political values and represents a risk not worth taking.

Kerry's strategy, so evident in all three presidential debates, is to disown liberalism. In its place, Kerry would have us believe that he's a centrist anchored squarely in the middle of the American political spectrum. That's not what the abundantly documented record of Kerry's 19 years in the U.S. Senate shows.

# posted by Knitting a Conundrum @ 6:18 AM