Kerry Complains He Is Target of ‘Fear and Smear’

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The New York Sun

Less than a week before the Republicans kick off their national convention in New York City, Senator Kerry came here yesterday, accusing President Bush of conducting a “fear and smear” campaign and predicting the Republican convention would offer “empty slogans” rather than real solutions.


Standing in front of six American flags and a white bust of President Lincoln at Cooper Union, the presidential hopeful said Mr. Bush is running a campaign that has “focused on false reassurance and false attacks.”


But even as Mr. Kerry condemned Mr. Bush’s campaign tactics and those of what he called Republican-backed “front groups,” the senator spent the bulk of his 37-minute speech lobbing critiques at his opponent rather than advancing his own record and policies.


“The world will listen to what the Republicans say when they come here, but words, slogans, and personal attacks cannot disguise what they have done and left undone,” he said. Motioning decisively with both hands, he continued, “They have obviously decided that some people will believe anything, no matter how fictional or how far-fetched, if they just repeat it often enough.”


Mr. Kerry, who has spent recent days attempting to fight charges made by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said, “You can’t cover up reality with a few empty slogans. You can’t lead America by misleading the American people.”


He did not confront the veterans’ charges directly.


A Cooper Union professor who listened to the speech, Fred Siegel, said he had hoped Mr. Kerry would confront the veterans group – which he said had hurt the senator – in his speech.


Instead, he said, Mr. Kerry spoke with “a lack of specifics on the key points” and made extensive use of “standard issue rhetoric” when it came to his priorities and his attacks on his opponents.


Mr. Kerry told the auditorium of cheering fans that during his campaign visits to porches and in town squares across America his countrymen told him they wanted access to affordable homes, jobs, and healthcare.


He said he would preserve tax cuts for the middle class, reduce the cost of health care, education, and energy, and boost the minimum wage. He briefly touched on two healthcare-related policies he supported as a senator, but didn’t talk in any depth about his record.


A spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, Kevin Madden, said it’s not surprising that Mr. Kerry didn’t describe his policy priorities in any detail.


“John Kerry has a 19-year Senate record that he’s been running away from since the beginning of this campaign,” he said.


Mr. Kerry spent more time discussing the negatives of the Bush administration. He said it had held private meetings with polluters, sided with big oil, backed an “anti-science” policy against embryonic stem cell research, and rewarded companies that send jobs overseas.


If Republicans were given four more years, he said they would continue to “put the narrow interests of the few ahead of the interests of most Americans.”


Mr. Kerry said: “They can’t or they refuse to talk about the real issues that matter to the American people. They have no plans, no positive vision, and no understanding of an urgent and understandable truth, a stronger America begins at home.”


He called for making America independent of Middle East oil in 10 years, “an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation, not the Saudi royal family.”


He predicted at their convention, Republicans would “bend over backward with last-minute proposals and last-minute promises for all they haven’t done and pretend they’re not who they are.”


But he said the president couldn’t “make up for four years in a few days of convention and a few weeks of campaigning.”


The Bush spokesman, Mr. Madden, said Mr. Kerry’s predictions about the Republican convention were wrong.


He said it would be “much different from the Democrats’ convention in Boston, which was nothing more than a convention with an anger agenda.”


He said Republicans would talk about their accomplishments since January 2001, and about their plans for the future in a “positive” and “hopeful” way.


On the Swift boat controversy, Mr. Madden said Mr. Kerry’s complaints about Republican attacks amounted to “a false claim of victimhood.”


“I think John Kerry knows that the accusations he’s making against our campaign are false,” he said. “He knows they’re baseless yet he continues to make them.”


On Monday, Mr. Bush came out against the Swift boat veterans’ ads – as well as all other advertisements paid for by independent political groups.


Mr. Madden said it’s time to “put this campaign back on track, where it belongs, talking about the issues that are important to the American public.”


After the early afternoon speech, Mr. Kerry went with a group of reporters and Brooklyn schoolchildren to the recently reopened Statue of Liberty.


Mr. Kerry demonstrated that he knows his New York City geography – accurately pointing out Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Lower Manhattan to the children – but he didn’t expound on his speech or defend himself further against the charges of the Swift boat veterans.


On the ride back from Liberty Island, Mr. Kerry asked Samantha Castillo, 11, of PS 154 in Brooklyn, “What was your favorite part?” Samantha answered, “Being with you,” winning her a pat on the head from the man who would be president.


The New York Sun

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