I'd just like to say that John Kerry is one of the good guys.

:patriot:

I wonder sometimes...

My father volunteered on Kerry's 1972 congressional race, so you don't have to convince me!

And given the amount of garbage he has had to put up with from "we the people" over the years, we are lucky that he keeps hanging in there and trying to do the right thing.

...lot. But he does so with dignity and integrity. :hi:

quite a lot of headaches!

remember the way he kicked Bush's butt in those debates. An intelligent good man, brought down in the election in 2004 by a bunch of lies.

:thumbsup:

He has proven time and again that he is a genuinely unique American hero. I'd defend him to my last breath.

...one of the good guys. :patriot:

an awesome contribution to our country!:patriot::patriot:

too bad he ran a horrible campaign

He would have won an incredible upset had there been adequate voting machines in Ohio. This was in a race where the media almost entirely favored Bush - even when in some cases their editorial boards endorsed Kerry. The Catholic church, knowing the number of Supreme Court Justices to be named - very likely the 2 Bush named plus at least Stevens, openly sided with Bush over a man who is a good Catholic. He also hurt himself by bowing to party and media calls to select an egomaniac VP who refused to do what the campaign wanted him to.

In addition, you might want to compare his excellent primary campaign, run by Kerry and Kennedy people to the general election campaign where they added in Clinton and Edwards people. The amount of negative kibitzing from the Clinton people was not helpful.

The fact is that NO Democrat would have done better in 2004. Many who say Kerry's campaign was bad are still upset that their primary favorite did not win. The fact though is that Kerry's primary campaign was far better than any of his opponent's.

Edited to add:

He would have been an incredible President, but would have faced the dysfunctional 109th Congress. Not to mention, Teresa Heinz Kerry would have been an awesome First Lady, who might have been the biggest surprise of his Presidency as few really saw who she was as she was really smeared more than her husband was in the election and had fewer opportunities to counter it.

...this:

"He would have won an incredible upset had there been adequate voting machines in Ohio."

I'd add that the GOP Secretary of State in Ohio set him up. Why Ken Blackwell isn't under investigation for that election is beyond me...

I'll always believe that Kerry won Ohio, whether it's ever proven or not.

I find some of his recent votes very bothersome.
He voted against drug re-importation, he voted to extend Patriot, and he voted against ending too big to fail.

All of those are huge issues for me and those votes have really hurt my trust in one of my favorites throughout my life. It's very disappointing that he has come down on the side of big money and power on such important areas.

It makes me super sad that Democrats can't see their way clear to full throated support the regular folks that are the people of the United States of America.
A few votes don't negate a lifetime of stellar service but they certainly don't inspire confidence for the next leg of the race we must run. Who is really on our side?

On drug re-importation, the problem was that had it won, it would have sunk the entire healthcare bill as it would not have gotten 60 votes. Remember that the 60 was both needed and held together with very thin threads. Kerry was a cosponsor to Dorgan's stand alone bill. This would suggest if this were done as a stand alone bill, there is no reason to think that he would not go for it. Like you, I was disappointed in this vote as he had always been for it - so I suspect it was to protect the bill itself. On the Finance committee, Kerry was one of the toughest on the drug companies.

Myself - I'm also not sure the right way to go is to allow re-importation. It would seem that a better solution would be to not allow companies to use their monopolies to charge more than they do elsewhere. What they are doing is, in effect, using US sales to recoup the bulk of their research costs. If they had to give the US the same price (or some small difference) that they offer elsewhere, it likely would bring US prices down, while slightly raising the prices elsewhere. I don't know if something like that could legally be done.

On extending the Patriot Act, Kerry with the other liberals held out for 2 filibusters - each time getting improvements. His opinion was that they had gotten as much as they were likely to get. At that point, the option was to pass the extention, which removed some of the worst things or the original Patriot Act would have been extended. It was never the case that the Patriot Act would just go away. The reason is that it included many important things - including Kerry's legislation to provide tools to fight international money laundering. This legislation was proposed by Kerry in the 1990s after he and his staff unraveled BCCI. Feingold, the only one to vote against it in 2001 said in 2001 that he agreed with 80% of the bill. Kerry, Spector, Feingold and others then cosponsored legislation that included the changes they still wanted - but it was not re-introduced in the next Congress.

On "too big to fail", I assume you mean Brown/Kauffman. Here, I don't agree that the way that this amendment shrunk the companies would have helped. In 2008, all of the 5 or 6 huge companies all bought the same toxic assets and all used their "safe bank" type assets to leverage themselves with these risky investments. Had they all been split in half - to be half as big - in maybe 2006, it is not clear that any of the parts, which would have the bankers and the derivative writers, would not have done the same thing. It is not clear at all to me that this would have limited the problem at all. So, this is something that might have done little to solve the problem, while putting the big banks at a disadvantage with their international peers.

Not all economists favored Brown/Kauffman. A real "too big to fail" action would be to reinstate a modern version of Glass/Steagall, which the Volkner rule to some degree does. (In the bill, it is not clear that this will be done - this is something worth watching when the conference report comes out.)

I disagree with your assessment of Brown/Kaufman but I would not use it as a substitute for updating and bringing back Glass/Stregall but in addition to it. The scope of these monster inherently makes us hostages to them and the reductions would have ended up being much greater than half. The top six banks make up more than 2/3's of our economy, they can't be wound down and won't likely be. If they did dissolve one it would be absorbed by the others, taking us closer to a corporate owned monopoly.

I don't care that not all economist favor the amendment or not. It is my deeply held belief and one that no one has really disputed. The debate is in how much of a threat too big to fail is, not that it isn't one at all. The bailouts were directly related to the size and functional penetration of these banks and if we are to reduce their likelihood then they must be made less manageable and if that cost us some competitive advantage then I'd rather see another nation of suckers take the risks and rewards.
Giant banks don't enhance the prosperity or opportunity of regular folks and as such they can go and never come back.

I think you are wrong on Patriot as well. It has to be reauthorized and as such should never be and as much as I respect Feingold we don't always see things the same nor do I set my clock by any person. I think it should end and I don't care about the excuses or supposed reasons. You and JK may feel some provisions are crucial but I care about freedom much more than safety, especially when the government action is a more immediate threat that instantly exceeds the terror threat it is designed to address.

Drug re-importation, I had hoped would be a band-aid until something better could be done and even at that would probably be more beneficial to most Americans than the craptacular Wealthcare and Profit Protection act. I'd rather have the status quo as a starting point to actual reform than have to unwind the corporate blow job.

Like I said I have kinda idolized Kerry my whole life pretty much. I'm not wanting to rag him out but he has taken positions I think are wrongheaded and his name and endorsements no longer have the same weight. I don't think the people were put first and that will be my guidepost rather than endorsements going forward.

I didn't state clearly enough that I do think that "too big to fail" is a major problem. My difference is that I would make them smaller by splitting off functions - not cloning smaller versions of the whole. The reason is that the banking part, if not allowed to speculate into derivatives and other things, could be regulated well enough that those pieces would not be part of the problem. (This might require better regulation than we currently have.) The other piece - the investment piece that had been kept separate created the danger because they were able to use the huge assets of the bank to make leveraged (as much as 44:1) bets.

I don't agree 100% with all of Kerry's votes. I do agree with a higher percent than I do most other Senators. What really is different is that I do think he is honest and that he does put people first. There will be times when there is honest disagreement on what does help people more.

On the Patriot act, my point was that had Kerry and others continued to filibuster and prevent the revised Patriot Act from passing, the old act would have stayed in place because another extension would have passed as easily as the earlier one did. So, the real choice was between the two versions.

I like Kerry. K and R