|
Kerry to show the rich he is centrist { April 16 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/16/politics/campaign/16KERR.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/16/politics/campaign/16KERR.html
April 16, 2004
Kerry Plans Effort to Show He Is a Centrist
By JODI WILGOREN
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., April 15 — Declaring that he is "not a redistribution Democrat," Senator John Kerry told a group of wealthy and well-connected supporters on Thursday that he would soon start an aggressive campaign to define himself as a centrist, in hopes of peeling moderate Republicans from President Bush.
Tacitly acknowledging his vulnerability to harsh portrayals in a barrage of Mr. Bush's advertisements over the past month, Mr. Kerry urged Democrats at a $25,000-a-plate breakfast at the "21" Club in Manhattan to help him paint his own portrait. He promised to begin "a positive affirmative advertising campaign" in "the next days," although his aides said there were no specific plans or timetables.
"A lot of people still don't really know who I am," Mr. Kerry, a four-term Massachusetts Democrat who has everything but the official title of presidential nominee, told the audience of 100 people. "The level of communication that we still need to undertake here is enormous."
Most reporters were barred from the event, which netted $2.5 million for the Democratic National Committee. A transcript of Mr. Kerry's remarks circulated by a journalist allowed in to represent reporters who travel with the campaign showed a candidate keenly aware of the need to define himself before his opponent beats him to it.
Mr. Kerry said he would cite his bipartisan credentials and pitch himself as a fiscal conservative to counter the Bush campaign's portrait of him as a waffling tax-and-spend liberal.
"We've got to reach out," Mr. Kerry said. "There are so many Republicans who have said to me: `You know, for the first time in my life, I'm going to vote for a Democrat. I'm ready to switch over.' "
He noted that Reagan Democrats were a critical faction in the 1980's but that Democrats like President Jimmy Carter had trouble attracting Republican votes.
"Fear not," Mr. Kerry said. "I am not somebody who wants to go back and make the mistakes of the Democratic Party of 20, 25 years ago. Nor am I somebody who believes that Washington has all the answers."
Calling the Bush administration "the most my-way-or-the-highway group of people I've ever met in my life," Mr. Kerry pointed to his relationship with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and suggested that bipartisanship would be crucial to his appeal. Mr. Kerry promised he would not run a "mealy-mouthed" or "namby-pamby campaign."
"Their goal is to define me and make me unacceptable," he said. "Our goal has to be to keep that acceptability."
Asked about appealing to married women concerned about terrorism, Mr. Kerry expressed concern that Mr. Bush would make his antiterror effort the overwhelming theme of his quest for re-election and said, "We have to convince America of my ability to be able to manage that as effectively, or more effectively, if possible."
"Home base for George Bush in this race, as you saw to the nth degree in his press conference, is terror," Mr. Kerry said. "Ask him a question, and he's going to go to terror."
The chairman of Mr. Bush's campaign, Marc Racicot, said in a statement, "Today's reckless allegation by Senator Kerry that the president is overemphasizing the threat of terror demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the global war on terror and the threat facing America and the world."
The "21" Club breakfast, at 8 o'clock, began a day in which Mr. Kerry spent little time in public with voters. He flew from New York to Washington for a private meeting with Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick and tacked on a last-minute forum at Howard University, which drew 150 students for an hourlong exchange. Mr. Kerry took his private jet to New Jersey, for a fund-raiser here that aides expected to raise $1.5 million. The schedule called for him to fly to his wife's house in western Pennsylvania.
At Howard, Mr. Kerry received tepid applause, particularly on questions about race. The topics included reparations for slavery (Mr. Kerry is opposed, but said so only after meandering paragraphs about lynching, Jim Crow, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and affirmative action), Haiti ("to some degree Aristide became what he preached against") and how he would appeal to African-American voters (he said he thought blacks cared about the same issues as everyone else).
A spokesman for Mr. Kerry, David Wade, would not discuss Mr. Kerry's 45-minute meeting with Cardinal McCarrick, who leads a church panel force on whether there should be sanctions against Roman Catholic politicians like Mr. Kerry whose positions on issues like abortion go against church doctrine.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
|
|
