[Marxism] Pundits to Kerry: Move Right

["Gilles d'Aymery" <aymery@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

MEDIA ADVISORY:
FAIR!: Pundits to Kerry: Move Right
Same advice every four years

April 9, 2004

Every four years, loud voices in the media advise the Democratic
presidential candidate to abandon progressive stances and occupy the
political center.  With Sen. John Kerry having emerged as the
presumable nominee, the pundits are once again issuing the same
prescription.

Time magazine's Joe Klein wrote (4/12/04) that Kerry needs to be
bold: "The ideal step would be to make [Republican Senator] John
McCain his choice for vice president and announce a government of
national reconciliation composed of moderate Democrats and
Republicans."  Klein recommended making a "radical move to the
middle, a campaign that looks and sounds different from the usual
partisan claptrap."

Over at Newsweek (4/12/04), political reporter Howard Fineman
had the same advice.  In a column based on what anonymous "wise
guys" are saying, Fineman says Kerry needs to craft "a coherent,
centrist vision." As Fineman puts it, "There's room in the middle, wise
guys insist."  To Fineman and his unnamed experts, "Kerry can't
occupy the center if he's defined as a mere liberal. He has the most
liberal voting record in the Senate.  What to do?"  Fineman has the
cure: Kerry should "run ads in battleground states reminding voters
that he was a prosecutor and that he voted for welfare reform in
1996, a brave (for Massachusetts) stand that drew picketers to his
home."

(Incidentally, the claim that Kerry has "the most liberal voting record
in the Senate" is dubious.  National Journal-- 2/27/04-- ranked him as
having the most liberal record in 2003-- a finding based on candidate
Kerry's votes on only 25 out of the 62 votes that the publication
ranked as either liberal or conservative.  In a more comprehensive,
less subjective ordering of senators by voting-- voteview.uh.edu--
Kerry was the 25th most liberal voter, right in the center of the
Democratic Party.)

And New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote on March 27
about his political dreams: "I want to wake up and read that John
Kerry just asked John McCain to be his vice president."  Friedman
explained that's the only way to tackle the country's problems, "with a
bipartisan spirit and bipartisan team."

[Full: http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kerry-centrism.html]

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