Former presidential contender keeps 2008 options open

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BOS11877/

WASHINGTON (AP) -- ...

"He is going to have a difficult time overcoming his last campaign and explaining to the party regulars how and why he lost," said Dan Payne, a longtime Democratic consultant and former Kerry strategist. "There's only so much that the Democrats can blame on (senior Bush adviser) Karl Rove."

Kerry will also be bucking history. Adlai Stevenson was a two-time Democratic nominee nearly a half-century ago. He suffered back-to-back losses in 1952 and 1956 to Republican Dwight Eisenhower...

Kerry's image as a Northeast liberal with fuzzy views on major issues like Iraq would make him vulnerable once more, said Kaufman, who was White House political director for Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush.

"I go to bed every night praying Kerry is the nominee again," he said.

time for new blood

because the party didn't get the job done and insists on blaming the candidate instead of fixing the real problems which include, but are not limited to:

1) use of media (so-called "liberal" pundits not backing up the candidate while the right wing backed theirs strongly, for just one specific. Overwhelming right wing domination of the airwaves, in general.)
2) crappy ground game. (quantity showed up in 2004. Sadly, not quality, at least not in enough places.)

Keep insisting "it was all Kerry's fault". That'll get the Dem candidate far in 2008 - not.

Russ Feingold is my personal choice

I don't blame it entirely on Kerry, it is also the MSM, the DNC, the DLC, and of course the vote counting. At the same time I do hold responsible. He brought up his military service at the convention, and then when it was attacked by the swift boat liars refused to answer their charges. During the campaign in the Grand Canyon he was asked knowing what he knows now would he have still voted to give bush the authority to go into Iraq, and he said yes!!!

And why did he think it would help him to turn down federal matching funds?

Since our convention was earlier than the pukes, they had 3 months on us

Sorry, but Kerry is just as responsible as the other factors you mention

Incidently, when the Kerry camp said their would NOT be any voting problems in 2004, and they had everything covered this time, WHERE WERE THEY?

No he had his chance

he lost his right to run again.

He is toast -- he is done.

:thumbsup:

and it wasn't the losing of votes - which were undoubtedly stolen - but the refusing to fight for the right thing, that, in my mind,
make him a loser. Damn it.

There was and is still ongoing plenty of legal action, which Kerry is involved in.

(psst...A "concession" isn't legally binding. If there were any legal recourse to revote the election (there wasn't) then a concession by one party would have made no difference).

And in any case, the biggest problem was voter suppression (as it has been since elections began) and you can't recount votes that were never cast. Thank God! some people understand that and are fighting the problem of voter suppression.

Cuz, according to the hacker, there is NO EVIDENCE to be had AFTERWARDS - the securing of the machines must be done BEFORE the voting, and that is what the DNC needs to do BEFORE 2008.

If machine fraud happened, as many allege and the exit polls suggest, then there will be no proof unless someone who was part of it turns whistleblower. And if only one person does, it might not even be enough unless their story can somehow be corroborated.

with the responses so far. I gave this guy a substantial amount of $$$ just to find out that there was a surplus when the election was over with.:wtf: :eyes:

You hear that Dean?! Turn this party around before 06 or 08 -- until then, don't expect another penny from me! I will give you my voting support, but that is it for now!

<snip>
The law limits what Kerry could do with that money. He was going to take public financing for the general election campaign in the fall, so he couldn't just push that $48.9 million over into post-convention spending. He could, however, transfer dollars to his campaign's general-election legal and compliance fund -- of which more in a minute -- or transfer it to national and state Democratic committees.

Which is what he did. Big time.
<snip>
And now to get back to that general election legal and compliance fund -- or what Washington wonks call the GELAC. Kerry's campaign directed a steady stream of money to its GELAC, which is a separate account presidential campaigns maintain to handle the money, file the disclosure reports, and otherwise comply with Federal Election Commission requirements.

All of these transfers totaled a bit less than $11 million through Oct. 13. Reports for the final 19-day sprint have yet to be filed. When they are, they'll show Kerry also gave the Democratic National Committee an astonishing $32.5 million.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4180018

with the money was legal and all. But I wish that he would have spent it more wisely. (And attacked more wisely with it.):eyes:

Gore Giving Leftover Cash of $6 Million to Back Kerry
Thursday, April 29, 2004

(New York Times)April 29, 2004

By GLEN JUSTICE and KATHARINE Q. SEELYE ASHINGTON, April 28 — Former Vice President Al Gore, who backed Howard Dean in the Democratic primaries, announced Wednesday that he would give more than $6 million left over from his unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign to support Senator John Kerry and the Democratic Party.

<snip>

Mr. Gore said he would give $4 million to the Democratic National Committee and $1 million each to party committees in the House and the Senate, according to his office. He will also give $250,000 to the party in his home state, Tennessee, which he lost in the 2000 election.

<snip>

Mr. Gore is allowed to dispose of excess money in both accounts and can legally transfer unlimited amounts to political parties, said Bob Biersack, a Federal Election Commission spokesman. The former presidential contender cannot give large amounts to candidates directly because of limits on contributions. Under campaign finance rules, he could also have given the money to a charity.

http://www.utdemocrats.org/ht/display/ArticleDetails/i/33893

I guess no one cares that Gore held on to his leftover cash until 2004. But it's some sort of mortal sin that Kerry hasn't given it all away yet.

Once you show them how you can lose it is more than an uphill struggle not to repeat. Even "big changes" ring hollow. Speaking as a Buffalo Bills fan, you can love the team but maybe wish not to witness a very predictable repeat. The GOP contenders can be choreographed rather easily to improve the pretext of a contest and enable more cheating.

Kerry is still in denial of his own victory and many of the critical and still unchallenged e-fraud used against him with no hope of accountability and LESS in the future. He is NOT trying to better his chances
strategically as laudable as his issue stands might be. All the unjustified smears have never be turned on their head and the wounds linger.

The only leveling advantage all contenders have is that no one seems otherwise inclined to perform better or "get with" the current situation. it reminds me of a slightly more sophisticated W. J. Bryan who thought to sweep up an avalanche of populist votes against the Hannah GOP machine, but simply washed up against the controlled worker vote in the East cheated into voting against their own interests.

A narrow win is a defeat for a fair vote and a real choice because what the nation needs and the majority wants is something much more. That the criminal GOP gang can sleep easily at nights handicapping a "contest" where they own the rulebook and gameboard signifies a shameful inability to muster leadership and vision to tackle the evil at its true level.

of the "e-fraud" instances that you consider "unchallenged."

Unfortunately I don't have a list of the cases and I may have lost the link, but I was on a legal site recently and was amazed at just the cases they listed that are in court. And I know there is a voter suppression case in Ohio brought by the LWV, that wasn't even listed on that site. So I am wondering which allegations do not have court cases?

If there is a court case, then it is not correct to say it is "unchallenged."

Meanwhile, there are three bills in the Senate to address electoral fraud, that have a paltry number of co-sponsors, yet Kerry has cosponsored every one. Have you called your Senator to ask them to join in cosponsoring and pushing these bills?




Legal action and legislation is how injustices are addressed in our society. You could take to the streets, too, but since hardly anyone in this country bothered to protest the obviously stolen election of 2000 (I was one, but quickly realized the country Just.Doesn't.Care), I don't get why some people want to hammer Kerry for not screaming "to the streets!" 2000/2001 proved that no one would follow.

and would have fit in well with the Mark Crispin Miller threads about Kerry. Too bad it didn't come up there. Will do as you say, but the type of challenging I am talking about is much more overt in the public forums AND DNC machine advice to all HAVA harassed Dems, and much more covert in the party itself digging up the dirt and fighting it. The fight against election fraud, on our side, seems too cautious, limited, quiet and middle of the road. As you say, Kerry is one of the few even ON that road after learning the really hard way.

Yet in a way he is one important head of the party and sponsoring bills in GOP no-man's-land without enough party support still raises a critique of viability and sufficiency. I really don't want to debate down an excellent man's chances but it is hard not to compare the isolated efforts of real challenges like the LWV sharing a weakness in big picture broad challenge one would expect of the party at the very least and the presidential contenders in particular. Insanely too little.

Let me think of a far out analogy. MLK was actually quite uncertain of his civil rights campaign considering the opposition that controlled all the roads. Except the courts gave him a shield. Now it seems that weakly and presumptively, the legislative Dems have delegated or left to others the legal crusade to protect our vote. That is as a whole and without individual Dem reformers seeming to budge the inertia. Only some writing bills that cannot pass and are partial cures for sweeping theft seem incredibly.... I am lost for an adequate word here. I am sure there are exceptions to this ignorant opinion of mine and if they do not prove the rule please give comfort. I spent a lot of time in "But Bev" posts considering the actual lack of real progress in stopping the looming fraud. Nothing changed anymore than Napoleon's campaign in Russia in 1812.

Kerry is filing legislation to root out and eliminate election fraud. The only way things will change is by changing the laws, and that's what he's trying to do. The war against election fraud will NOT be won by people bitching and moaning and bashing Dems here on DU.

although the venue I am talking about is not the legislature alone but the entity of the party leadership and how it deals with the media and GOP dominance on the issues.

As to us with the big non-ideas we certainly have no easy substitutes for action. But one would think an old experienced party organization would have better reactions and unity on a basic issue like election stealing. It's a mess. The GOP orgnanizes their messes to survive.

this info on the MCM/Kerry-bashing threads. But there were so many, I probably missed many of them.

I know I posted the Obama one because that really pissed me off. At the time Kerry was still the only cosponsor.

I believe you will see some gradual improvement in the Dem Party's (and Kerry's) visibility on this issue. However they may be concerned that Dem voters tend to be more "fragile" than repub voters in their resolution to come to the polls anyway, and creating a lot of feeling that "my vote won't count anyway" could backfire. I don't know if they are thinking that, but I know the "fragile" part is true - Dems are more likely to stay home as it is. So maybe they are trying to take steps to actually safeguard the vote, without increasing voter cynicism. I don't know if that's a good approach (I will neither defend it or criticize it at this point), but if that's what they are trying to do, at least it has a rational basis and explains why you don't hear more potent language on the issue from leading Dems.

I guess I share some of your frustration but mine is mostly directed at the electorate. There was story after story in major papers - agreed, usually not on page 1, but still there - about the various forms of fraud in Florida in 2000. Yet where was the outrage of the American people? Perhaps it was building in early 2001, but became another casualty of 9/11. Will we ever know? But it makes no sense. Our own democracy was stolen from us on December 12, 2000. Yet how many Americans mourn?

understand, in order to strategize and have any chance of success in '06 and '08:

"That the criminal GOP gang can sleep easily at nights handicapping a 'contest' where they own the rulebook and gameboard signifies a shameful inability to muster leadership and vision to tackle the evil at its true level." --PATRICK

In plain, practical terms: Rightwing Bushite corporations (mainly Diebold and ES&S) control the tabulation of all of our votes, using 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls.

Just stop right there. Re-read that statement of FACT. It is like a brick wall that all of us are bashing our heads against, in any discussion of potential candidates, issues, campaign strategies and hopes of success.

Let me repeat it: Rightwing Bushite corporations (mainly Diebold and ES&S) control the tabulation of all of our votes, using 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls.

They might as well have collected all our ballots and handed them to Karl Rove, and let him take the ballots into a White House basement, "count" them, and come back out and TELL US how we voted. "Ahem...Bush won."

That's how NON-TRANSPARENT the last election was--and how non-transparent the NEXT ones are going to be.

Why is this so?

How could our Dem Party leadership have let this happen?

Why did our Dem Party leadership not burn Washington to the ground to get this changed?

How could they LET US go into a national election with BUSHITE CORPORATIONS TABULATING THE VOTES WITH SECRET FORMULAE?

Why NOT ONE WORD about it, prior to the election? Not one word of warning. Not a finger lifted to change it and to demand transparency?

And we're facing '06 and '08 with the same--and even worse--non-transparency and PARTISAN CONTROL of the voting system.

---------------------

THIS is part of the situation that Kerry faced on the night of Nov. 2, 2004. Either he knew that major Bush donors, campaign chair and far rightwing billionaire nuts had "counted" all the votes in secret, and was part of some Bilderberg/Skull & Bones cabal to take this country into a Mideast war, OR, SOMEBODY misinformed him about the security and integrity of the election system (my suspicion, Christopher Dodd), and he--for whatever reason--did not investigate it on his own.

I favor the latter explanation, but I DO NOT KNOW for sure. I suspect Terry McAulliffe and Donna Brazile--and other advisers, probably of the pro-war variety--of ALSO neglecting the most egregious, the most obvious, the most no-brainer NON-TRANSPARENCY of the election SYSTEM, and of misinforming Kerry about it.

Another part of what Kerry faced that night was that the war profiteering corporate news monopolies had FALSIFIED their own exit polls to "fit" the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret formulae, on everybody's TV screens on election night--thus depriving the American people of major evidence of election fraud. The exit polls (the real ones) said Kerry won. The electronic voting system--in which one third of the votes were completely UNRECOUNTABLE (no paper trail at all), and in which the rest of the vote was virtually unrecountable (cost of recounts, rules against recounts, totally inadequate auditing recounts, huge vote flips possible at the speed of light, leaving no trace), all controlled by BUSHITE CORPORATIONS--said Bush won.

This was not the normal adjustment that is made to exit polls, as election returns come in, to model for election demographics. This was an extremely unusual--indeed, impossible--FORCED match of the exit polls to the result of Diebold's and ES&S's SECRET number crunching--and they had to stage a phony "crash" of the election reporting system that night in order to accomplish it.

So, what Kerry was looking at (and what all of us were looking at) was all the networks "confirming"--with DOCTORED exit polls--that Bush had won.

So think again about Kerry (supposed scenario): Mis-informed about the non-transparency and riggability of the election system, by persons whose motives we can only guess at. Mis-informed, by all the major news organizations, about major evidence of election fraud (the real exit poll results). Surrounded with Dem Party advisers, who--for whatever reasons, good or bad (or very bad)--who refused to back any election challenge and want him to concede. Facing a Bush "pod people" Congress that will endorse a Bush win, no matter what the evidence is. Facing a Supreme Court that had crowned Bush king in 2000. And facing god knows what else, from the most dangerous criminal gang on earth, which now had control of all of our intelligence capability (known and unknown), and all of our military capability, and with the resources of fabulous wealth and power to achieve any purpose they wish, leaving no trace.

Personally, I cannot judge Kerry in these circumstances. I think that a magnificent antiwar grass roots movement elected him president, and threw the Bush gang out of office, and that this was the will of the great majority of Americans (with new voter registrants signing up to be Democrats at a rate of 60/40, in 2004, and many other indications of overwhelming revulsion at the Bush regime). I think there are those in the Dem Party who did not want a president who was beholden to an antiwar grass roots, and others who are simply venally corrupt on the $4 billion electronic voting boondoggle, all of whom contributed, actively or passively, to the election theft 2004.

To me, THIS is the problem that we must deal with, in '06 and '08. Not who we would prefer this NON-TRANSPARENT election system to 'SELECT' as our candidates, but, rather, WHY there is NO HOPE of a true populist antiwar candidate getting nominated, and WHY our Party has acquiesced to a SECRET, PRIVATE vote tabulation system, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations.

The answers may be a MIXED BAG of fear, intimidation, corruption large and small, blackmail, ignorance, inattention, militarism (being hogtied to war profiteers), the obliviousness of the rich elite (to which most of our politicians belong), cynicism, and various kinds of helplessness.

It may be that we need to take a BIG BROOM to state/local election officials across the country, in order to restore our right to vote. We have a situation now in which these electronic voting machines and their masters are DICTATING election policy and preventing reform.*

Our election system guarantees fascist rule for the foreseeable future. The powers who control this system may possibly permit a War Democrat to win in '08, for their own purposes (to get a military Draft, for instance), but you can be sure that it will NOT result in accountability for war crimes and other egregious violations of the law including massive theft. War Democrats are game-players--playing both sides of the fence. The purpose is to maintain huge military budgets by promoting the concept of "enemies" (regardless of the fact that whatever "enemies" we may have are best handled by good policing, and that unjust war CREATES more "enemies").

The main benefit that I can think of, of a War Democrat's administration, is the chance to reform the election system (since even War Democrats have to pay lip service to progressive values such as transparent elections). I think that's what we should go for, as our top priority, whoever this rigged nomination system "selects" for us as "our" candidate.

As for '06, I think they may give us very modest gains in Congress--nowhere near a majority--in order to throw suspicion off the election system and dampen the election reform movement. All the issue and approval polls, over a several year period, show the absolute disgust of the great majority of Americans with every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic. War. Torture. The deficit. You name it. The opposition to Bush has been way up in the 60% to 70% range, on all major issues, for some time. But this will NOT be reflected in big gains for leftists (the true majority) in Congress in '06. Bush's buds at Diebold and ES&S will NOT permit this to happen.

Non-transparent elections are not elections. They are tyranny. That is what we have now--tyranny by the War Party, that is taxing us for policies with which we overwhelmingly disagree. And this will not, and cannot, change until we restore our right to vote.

-------

*(NOTE: I believe that we can still overwhelm election fraud with large turnouts in individual races, although probably not in a prez race. The election fraud system has only been tested out, nationwide, once--in 2004--and still has a lot of bugs in it, so to speak. For instance, I suspect that much of the vote-flipping has to be pre-programmed, prior to the election, and is based on good guesses as to the amount of tweak that is needed. I think this was the reason for the highly visible and illegal vote suppression in Ohio--they guessed wrong about the size of Kerry's win. But this could change, and there are ominous signs in Ohio itself that it is changing--that they are refining methods of large-scale vote flipping that no one seems able to monitor or prevent, although I think they may still be constrained by the need to pre-program it. Recently, in Ohio, there were four ELECTION REFORM initiatives on the ballot, that were predicted to win by 60/40 majorities, but that got flipped over into 60/40 LOSSES (!) on election day--the biggest flipover we've seen yet. See Bob Koehler's article on the Ohio initiatives--it is hair-raising: http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20051124ctnbk-a.txt&catid=1824&code=ctnbk )

--------

My dream ticket: Gore/Kerry. Based on the concept of "poetic justice." Both men were unlawfully deprived of the White House. Gore is a man on fire, judging from his public addresses last year. Wow, does he "get it"! And Kerry could be brought along, and had the endorsement of 60-to 70 million Americans in 2004 (that's a lot of Americans--and a lot of name recognition). Americans above all love justice--and adding "poetic" to the justice, even more so. I think they would love it--and we have only (!) to get them educated and mobilized on election reform in the meantime.

I also favor Boxer/Conyers. But I think this ticket would be scuttled by the War Dems, whereas Gore/Kerry might be an acceptable compromise. Under G/K, the war will go on, but under much better management, with no preemptive strikes based on lies, an end to torture (Gore) and other unlawful activities, and with good efforts at diplomacy. And the world would be put right again--with the US a more honest player at the UN, a repeal of tax cuts for the rich and other fascist policies, well-managed government (i.e, FEMA), some measured accountability for Bushite crimes, signing of the Kyoto treaty, and so on--and, most important of all, a complete re-haul of the election system, for irreversible transparency.

What do I guess will happen? Hillary. And, if we want election reform--the last hope for democracy in this country--we'll have to stomach it and pressure Hillary for the easiest and quickest solution: federal reform (say, Rush Holt's HR 550--banning undisclosed software, among other things).

I'm all for slugging it out in the primaries--hard left push on the true majority progressive agenda--but rallying to whoever gets "selected" for us, and positioning ourselves in that campaign to achieve election reform later.

-------

Info:

www.votersunite.org
www.verifiedvoting.org
www.UScountvotes.org
www.TruthIsAll.net
www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml

mainly because Gore has clearly demonstrated he has grown since his 2000 loss (and Kerry seems to have not grown much since his loss), and of course, Gore did fight for his job back in November/December 2000 (where Kerry gave up right off the bat).

the popular vote by 3 million?

BushInc padded their vote totals all over the country, just to assure that any challenge would be met with ferocious backlash by their pet media.

Remember how anxious the media was to claim a mandate for Bush and NOT speak at all to the possibility of machine fraud?

activities that showed you that Gore handled his year better than Kerry handled his?

That way we can all understand how you came to your conclusion.

I like Gore, don't get me wrong, but to be honest for four years after the 2000 election I couldn't name one thing that he did except grow a beard. I know this year he has spoken out more against the war and started a television network but that leaves a large gap in time. If I've missed something, I would honestly like to know about it.

John Kerry on the other hand has been out front fighting for the American people, for the Democratic Party and for other Democratic candidates on a daily basis since the 2004 election. He's not bitchin' and moanin' about the past, he's moving forward, fighting for us all.

Kerry waffles back and forth over what happened in 2004. Gore hasn't waffled about 2000.

Gore fought for the job. Kerry didn't, and still acts as if there's nothing to challenge in Ohio.

Your "challenge" about what Gore did in 2001 is worthless. As an actual smart person, I will instead observe the *full* body of evidence.

Sorry. Kerry is D-E-A-D, politically. Own up to that.

for his own reasons and did so for over a full year.

Gore did not seek to fight against election fraud during that time and still hasn't addressed it as an issue.

The FULL body of evidence, shows that Kerry is still involved in two election suits in Ohio.

Where do you get this so-called information that Kerry acts as if there is nothing to challenge in Ohio?

It's a long way to '08. For now, there are few holding bush*s feet to the fire, and Sen Kerry is one who is. There are a few others. Where are the rest?

I'll support Sen Kerry as long as he continues to fight the good fight. And I'm certain he will.

even try to support his nomination again. It feels like a no-win situation.

You can see by idiotic comments like Kaufman's that they are underestimating his ability to learn and change tactics (note Kerry also lost his first political race, and came back strong from that).

Or perhaps they are hoping to bait the left into sentiments like shown on this thread ("Kerry blew it", "Kerry can't win", etc). Glass of RTP Kool-aid anyone? Oh, I see you've already drunk up.


(edited to clarify)

(sorry, no link. Jan '06 with Howard Stern on the cover)
He talks about what he learned. I agree, MH. He can win in '08.
In my discussions with 'average voters', I don't think they blame him for the loss. They see him as someone who came very close despite vicious attacks. Most people I talk with hope he runs again. These are co-workers, not DUers, and I think they are representative of typical voters. JMHO.
If bush* continues to screw them and Sen Kerry continues to point to bush* failures the way he has been, he's going to continue to gain support for '08.
That said, it's too early to speculate beyond that. My focus right now is on getting rid of Santorum.

John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry. I think that's really a major priority for them right now, making sure that Democratic candidates at ALL levels (from mayors to Senators) are elected. That's what his PAC, Keeping America's Promise is all about. Imagine that - Democrats supporting Democrats. What a novel idea!

a couple months ago. Man, she really doesn't like Santorum.
I just love that about her.
:-)

the GOP will find new ways to smear him, and again, he won't take them on. He has given *no* indication whatsoever that he has learned how to take on the GOP in a dogfight that is the U.S. presidential election.

As for the RW spin on the campaign's response to the Swift Liars -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2016421&mesg_id=2016614

.

Pathetic.

BEFORE the next election.

YOU laid down and died when the Swift Boaters attacked.

YOU laid down and died when YOU KNEW there was hanky panky in Ohio.

Time and Time again, YOU let Bush get away with everything.

I want a fighter, not somebody who lays down and dies. That's why I'll go with Russ Finegold!

he gave to the firefighters convention, which broadcast media chose to not cover even as the Dem nominee for president.

Media rarely allowed the public to absorb the fact that the firefighters endorsed Kerry.

When Feingold or any other Dem gets attacked by lies and their defense gets little coverage, will it be his fault, too, or the fault of the GOP controlled media?

Face it - media was prepared to do what it needed to do to prevent the public from hearing the truth on any issue. They NEEDED to keep Bush in to protect their own growing empires.

We either DEAL with the media and expose its control by the GOP now or suffer through the next GOP presidency.


On Aug. 19, 2004 Kerry himself responded directly in a speech to the International Association of Firefighters' Convention in Boston. (from prepared remarks)


...And more than thirty years ago, I learned an important lesson—when you're under attack, the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attacker. That's what I intend to do today.

Over the last week or so, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been attacking me. Of course, this group isn’t interested in the truth – and they're not telling the truth. They didn't even exist until I won the nomination for president.

But here's what you really need to know about them. They're funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They're a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the President won't denounce what they’re up to tells you everything you need to know—he wants them to do his dirty work.

Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam.

As firefighters you risk your lives everyday. You know what it’s like to see the truth in the moment. You're proud of what you’ve done—and so am I.

Of course, the President keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: "Bring it on."

I'm not going to let anyone question my commitment to defending America—then, now, or ever. And I'm not going to let anyone attack the sacrifice and courage of the men who saw battle with me.

And let me make this commitment today: their lies about my record will not stop me from fighting for jobs, health care, and our security – the issues that really matter to the American people...


* * *

If he really was a fighter, he would have slammed the Swift Boaters in every speech.

He didn't.

I want a fighter.

I want Finegold.

you care about truth.

BTW....can you name the TEN Senators who signed the letter of inquiry on DSM? For the life of me I can't imagine why only ten did so last summer.

to stop someone like Hillary.