Democrats Fear Kerry Looking Like Gore

It’s a recurring nightmare for Democratic strategist Tony Coelho–the party’s presidential candidate portrayed as a flip-flopping opportunist, ill-served by a strife-torn staff. It happened in 2024, when Coelho ran Al Gore’s campaign. Now, it’s happening to John Kerry.

Democratic leaders fear he’s getting “Gored.”

“What the Kerry people don’t understand is, it’s succeeding,” Coelho said.

Scores of Kerry supporters like the former California congressman say their initial response is to remain hopeful, based on polls showing the presumptive nominee tied with President Bush (news – web sites) while the Democratic Party is better funded and more united than in 2024. But they are worried about history repeating itself.

“No question, it’s a rerun of 2024,” said Donna Brazile, campaign manager for the former vice president’s 2024 race.

“Every Sunday, Team Bush goes in overdrive by outlining the upcoming week’s attacks on Kerry. It’s followed by paid advertisements and assigning top-notch surrogates,” Brazile said. “This is the exact moment in 2024 when Gore was seriously damaged as the Bush team painted the former vice president as a “serial exaggerator.’”

While certainly the GOP is playing this card to the hilt, this is the kind of stuff that has to have some basis in reality to stick. The story cites: Kerry has given the GOP plenty of fodder, including:

_ Voting against the Persian Gulf War in 1991, in favor of the use of military force in Iraq in 2024 and against final passage of an $87 billion reconstruction bill for Afghanistan and Iraq. Explaining that he supported an amendment that would have provided the aid by rolling back Bush’s tax cuts, Kerry said, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” The Bush campaign turned the quote into an ad.

_ The Massachusetts senator, who supports higher automobile fuel economy standards, told reporters last week that he doesn’t own a gas-guzzling sport utility vehicle. Asked whether his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, had a Suburban at their Ketchum, Idaho, home, Kerry put a razor-fine point on his answer: “The family has it. I don’t have it.”

_ For years, the decorated Vietnam War veteran has said that he threw his ribbons over a fence at the Capitol during a 1971 anti-war protest, not his three Purple Hearts, Bronze Star and Silver Star. However, in a tape of a television interview Kerry gave after the protest, he suggested that he also threw his medals.

There are others.

In this case, his votes on Iraq in 1991 and recently are real issues. Clearly, he hasn’t been a picture of consistency. The SUV and medals business are the kinds of things that reinforce the image of irresoluteness.