Essay on Presidential Candidate "John Kerry"

Most campaigns feature efforts by the candidates to characterize their opponent as being out of the mainstream—as an extreme liberal or as part of the far right. The current presidential campaign is no exception.
Thus far, most of the ideological fire has been directed at the Kerry-Edwards ticket. The Bush campaign has gotten particularly good mileage out of a National Journal analysis of roll call voting in 2003 that ranked John Kerry of Massachusetts as the No. 1 liberal in the Senate and John Edwards of North Carolina as the fourth-most-liberal senator.

Even before Kerry triumphed in the primaries, foreign policy generally, and Iraq specifically, dominated the campaign a state of affairs from which he unquestionably benefited, though the benefits may not hold indefinitely. His experience, both as a senator and as a combat veteran, proved instrumental in his victory, and as the situation deteriorates overseas, he and Bush, who was expected to be comfortably ahead, are essentially running neck and neck. At the same time, Kerry has come under constant attack for failing to articulate a clear plan to halt Iraq's slide into anarchy.

Starkly departed from the one charted by President Bush, yet was equally unlike the approach characterized by soft multilateralism and fealty to the United Nations portrayed by Republicans as typical of Democratic foreign policy. Some politicians emphasized the need for skilled diplomatic management and a willingness to use force abroad, but also an essential caution. The more he spoke, the more he called to mind the policies of the first Bush Administration.

George H.W. Bush has receded into history. But his Administration's traditional if unimaginative attitude toward foreign relations lives on through his National Security Adviser, Brent Scowcroft, who re-emerged two years ago as one of the most unabashed and difficult-to-dismiss critics of the buildup to war in Iraq.................

ESSAY ON THE AMERICAS