http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/david_sarasohn/index.ssf?/base/editorial/109248497688950.xmlSunday, August 15, 2004
DAVID SARASOHN
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"Values" is supposed to be a Republican buzzword, the product of years of claims about "Main Street" and "common sense," loudly compared with the strange views of the out-of-touch folks in Washington, D.C. The president and vice president recite the word daily on the campaign trail, since it's easier to talk about values than the current economic numbers -- and it's a more wholesome-sounding code for conservative social positions.
But, Kerry points out, people cherish more than one kind of values. There are values of helping people do what they can, as well as sternly telling them what they can't.
"Values are how you treat your children, how you educate your society," the Massachusetts senator said in an interview after his speech. "Values are not having people huddled in blankets on the street. Values are leaving the planet in cleaner shape to our children than we got it.
. . .
Kerry's a more effective speaker these days than earlier in the race, in places like winter-bound New Hampshire, where he often seemed trapped in Senatespeak and in a certain doleful demeanor. Friday afternoon, finishing a two-week trek across the country before a crowd the fire marshal estimated at 50,000 -- with thousands of others scattered around streets and bridges after the gates were officially closed -- could have brightened up any candidate, and it certainly seemed to enliven Kerry.
Besides, "I'm talking to real people, unscreened," he remarked in the interview, unsubtly referring to President Bush's appearance to ticketed Republicans only a few miles west. "I don't talk to people who take an oath of fealty, who have to sign some document to get in."
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