Why John Kerry?
The Massachusetts senator has the experience and commitment to stand up for working families.
By Clyde Weiss
In late March, AFSCME's International Executive Board unanimously endorsed Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts for President in the upcoming election. He is now the presumptive Democratic nominee and the candidate most able to achieve AFSCME's overriding 2004 goal — to defeat George W. Bush.
Bush has demonstrated time and again that his Presidential program consists essentially of rewarding his business and political pals at the expense of working families.
Throughout his campaign for the nomination, Senator Kerry argued forcefully for issues vital to the labor movement and working families: ending Bush's tax cuts for the rich; launching an effective program of jobs creation; preserving Social Security and overtime pay from assault by Bush and his allies; and replacing the recently passed, bogus "reform" of Medicare with changes that help seniors, not drug companies.
Kerry has also demonstrated that he will work to see that the nation's environment is protected for all Americans and to ensure that a just, effective peace is established in Iraq.
The leadership of this great union is convinced that nothing is more important to the future of our country than the election of John F. Kerry in November.
As he criss-crossed the nation in his victorious quest for the Democratic Presidential nomination, John F. Kerry pounded home the failings of the Bush administration. Declared Kerry, the junior senator from Massachusetts: "I'm running because George Bush has taken America in a radically wrong direction with a Presidency that serves powerful special interests instead of everyday Americans."
Kerry promised to reverse a long list of Bush's wrong-headed policies and address an equally long list of his policy omissions. He promised:
to revoke every Bush executive order that favors environmental polluters and special interests — as well as the four blatantly anti-union orders issued shortly after Bush took office in 2001.
to attack corporate corruption and "end the special-interest feeding frenzy in Washington." Most important, Kerry asserted his firm intention to revitalize the economy: to create 10 million new jobs in his first term, reversing the Bush trend of losing jobs; end the "outsourcing" of jobs overseas (see related story); and repeal Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy to increase investment in education and health care.
Kerry brought those messages — full of common sense, determination and hope — to AFSCME's International Executive Board in March, when the board voted unanimously to endorse him.
The senator has emphasized his passion for helping unemployed Americans find jobs and, for the rest of us, to restore confidence in the future. Kerry has outlined — and continues to issue — a variety of workable solutions to restore America's economy. In his first 500 days as President, Kerry pledges that he will replace every job lost during the worst of Bush's economic stewardship. "I would start by putting in place a Job Creation Tax Cut for businesses that hire new workers and increase salaries. I'd also encourage businesses to invest in new equipment and machinery."
CUT THE CUTS. Kerry also has vowed to scale back the new and unaffordable tax cuts, but only for Americans making over $200,000 a year; to send Bush's recently passed Medicare bill back to the drawing board (see related story); to protect Social Security against privatization; and to vigorously enforce trade treaties to ensure that workers don't become victims of unfair trade practices.
Kerry's position on the war on terrorism stands in sharp contrast to Bush's counter-productive policies. Last fall, as Congress was debating an $87-billion bill to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the senator proposed repealing some of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy to help foot the bill. Bush chose to send all taxpayers deeper into debt.
That money, Kerry pointed out, could have been used "here at home — to make health care more affordable, to pay for homeland security, to keep this President's promise to leave no child behind."
KERRY CAN WIN "Every place I have been in this campaign, I have seen the wreckage of the Bush economy," said Kerry at a union rally. "Every single year, George Bush has promised to create jobs — and every year he ends up losing them."
The importance of defeating Bush this November has never been clearer. Since he took office in January 2001, Bush promised to create 5.1 million jobs, but he has lost 1.5 million total jobs, almost 7 million short of where he told the country it would be. Yet Bush's "solution" is the same one he pushed even before the recession: tax cuts, mostly benefiting the wealthy. It hasn't worked.
Can Kerry beat Bush? In tough, early Democratic primary contests leading to his unchallenged status as the presumed nominee, the senator repeatedly proved that he can. He captured all but three primary contests. Most polls now show him in a dead heat with Bush.
SHAPED BY WAR. To demonstrate his military experience and understanding, John Kerry didn't have to put on a flight suit and land on a peacetime aircraft carrier amid a mob of photographers. The jungles of Vietnam's Mekong Delta shaped him — as an untested young naval officer — into a war hero. A volunteer, he served the nation from 1966-69, earning a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts.
But as the Vietnam War divided a nation, it divided Kerry. His pride in his fellow soldiers and his country was coupled with a growing conviction — expressed upon his return to the States — that the war was wrong. In 1971, he co-founded Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and testified on his views before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Then just 27, Kerry famously posed this unanswerable question, still relevant today: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
Beginning with his birth in December 1943, at a military hospital in Denver, military service had numerous influences on John Kerry. His father, Richard, a foreign service officer, had flown DC-3s in the Army Air Corps during World War II.
ON TO WASHINGTON. After Vietnam and armed with a degree from Yale, Kerry set his sights on public service, running unsuccessfully for Congress in 1972. He changed course, attended Boston College Law School and became an attorney. Soon he landed the post of assistant district attorney in Massachusetts' Middlesex County, where he took on organized crime. In 1982, he was elected the state's lieutenant governor. Determined to make a difference in Washington, Kerry ran for the U.S. Senate in 1984, was elected and is now serving his fourth term. The senator has distinguished himself in many areas: taking on corporate welfare and government waste; defending the environment; leading an investigation to learn whether missing American soldiers were still in Vietnam; spearheading the effort to boost funding to combat AIDS; probing a banking scandal; and pressing to reform campaign-finance laws.
To win, Kerry will need the enthusiastic assistance of AFSCME members in contributing money to PEOPLE, campaigning at the local level, going to the polls and persuading others to go with them. In the senator's own words: "Our institutions — AFSCME, the rest of organized labor and the Democratic Party — have got to get out there and do the real work of politics. GOTV does not mean 'get on TV.' It means get out the vote!"
Watch Kerry Address AFSCME!
John F. Kerry's address to our biennial Convention, scheduled for Thursday, June 24, will be "Webcast" and available to all our members live at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time. Simply put in the pass code found in your print edition of Public Employee magazine to see the Democratic candidate's speech. Tune in to our next President!
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