I DON’T think anybody in their right mind is going to run for president on a strategy of ‘people hate the other guy and that’s enough for our guy to win,’" Douglas Sosnik, the White House political director for Bill Clinton, told the New York Times at the end of May.1 Well, John Kerry might just be that candidate.

Many months have passed since Kerry began calling corporate CEOs "Benedict Arnolds," and Kerry has covered a lot of political ground–straight to the right. He’s shed the populist rhetoric he used in order to steal Howard Dean’s thunder to take the primaries, and traded it in for what the media and political consultants call "electability"–the idea that, in order for a candidate to stand a chance he cannot be too far "out of the mainstream."

That translates into:_support for the war in Iraq and the "war on terror," support for the USA_PATRIOT Act, and opposition to gay marriage. He even believes that there are occasions when preemptive war is necessary, a key component of the Bush Doctrine.

Still, for millions of people, the top priority in the November election is throwing Bush out of the White House, no matter how bad the alternative. The mantra is "Anybody but Bush."

But some important questions have to be asked. Will the policies of a Kerry administration be that different from those of a Bush administration? And why, if so many people are disgusted with Washington’s reign of terror–on the people of Iraq and on workers and the poor at home–is Kerry getting away with offering so little of an alternative?

"When it comes to Iraq, it is getting harder every day to distinguish between President Bush’s prescription and that of Senator John Kerry," wrote New York Times reporters Adam Nagourney and Richard Stevenson in late May.2 John Kerry is as committed to continuing the U.S. occupation of Iraq as Bush is. "Americans differ about whether and how we should have gone to war,’’ Kerry said in a recent radio address. "But it would be unthinkable now for us to retreat in disarray and leave behind a society deep in strife and dominated by radicals.’’3

Kerry favors spreading the burden of the occupation to our allies around the world. But so does Bush. In his televised press conference from the East Room of the White House in May, Bush, too, announced his intention to bring in the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The similarity of Kerry’s position to the Bush administration’s position had conservatives singing Kerry’s praises. "The most important thing about Sen. Kerry’s op-ed, I thought is how similar it really is to Bush administration policy, and that I say in praise of him," William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, said in an interview with the Washington Post’s Terry Neal. Kristol is also chairman of Project for the New American Century, the pro-war foreign policy think tank that has called for war on Iraq since the mid—1990s.

"He is not willing to cut and run from Iraq," Kristol said of Kerry, "He wants the UN to be more involved, but he doesn’t say if we can’t get the UN more involved, we should get out. President Bush is trying to get the UN involved, too."4

Rather than posing an alternative to the hawks in the Bush administration, Kerry has tried to establish himself as an even tougher version of Bush. "I can fight a more effective war on terror than George Bush," Kerry said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. "I will make America safer and stronger than George Bush has."5 "I do not fault George Bush for doing too much in the war on terror," Kerry likes to say. "I believe he’s done too little."6 Kerry is eager to prove that he has no problem with preemptive war when needed. In mid—March, he vowed to "do whatever it takes to ensure that the 21st century American military is the strongest in the world. I will not hesitate to use force when it is needed to wage and win the war on terror."7

And here is where we get a sense of why exactly Kerry favors a more multilateral approach. "Working with other countries in the war on terror is something we do for our sake–not theirs. We can’t wipe out terrorist cells in places like Sweden, Canada, Spain, the Philippines, or Italy just by dropping in Green Berets," Kerry said in February.8 Though, it should be added, a key component of Kerry’s plan to revitalize the military "for our sake" includes a doubling of U.S. Special Forces.9

He has criticized the Bush administration for its single-mindedness over Iraq, which he says has diverted attention from the real focus–making sure that Korea and Iran don’t develop nuclear weapons. He accuses Bush of making the military weaker, supporting more troops, at least 40,000, to be on the ready to go after "terrorist organizations with or without ties to rogue nations and failed states."¹⁰ Kerry also proposes enlisting the National Guard in Homeland Security to "break down the old barriers between national intelligence and local law enforcement."¹¹

So dedicated is Kerry to upholding Israel’s watchdog status in the Middle East, he is willing to defend Israel’s worst atrocities. When Meet the Press’s Tim Russert asked Kerry what he thought of the assassination of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi in April, the Democrat responded, "I believe Israel has every right in the world to respond to any act of terror against it.… And I support Israel’s efforts to try to separate itself and to try to be secure."¹² Kerry also told Russert that he agreed with Bush’s announcement that Israel could keep part of the land seized in the 1967 war and that Palestinian refugees could not return to their homes.

Kerry supports the foreign policy agenda of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), the Democrats’ counterpart to the neoconservatives’ Project for a New American Century (PNAC). In the fall of 2003, the hawkish PPI unveiled their nineteen-page manifesto, "Progressive Internationalism: A Democratic National Security Strategy." The similarities between the two organization’s views is underscored by the fact that six Democrats, including a member of the PPI, were among the twenty-three people who signed PNAC’s March 19, 2003, letter to the Bush administration on post-war Iraq advocating a long occupation. The people that Kerry has selected for his foreign policy team could stand toe to toe with any of the Bush hawks. Kerry’s team includes Richard Morningstar and Rand Beers. Morningstar, a former Clinton adviser, pushed for the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that opens up access to oil in the Caspian Sea. The Clinton administration recruited the likes of Dick Cheney and James Baker to lobby local governments to accept the construction of the pipeline.

Beers is best known for his work in the Clinton administration for the deadly crop-fumigation program in Colombia. "If John Kerry lets Rand Beers continue to guide his foreign policy, a Kerry administration will be no better for rural Colombians than a Bush administration," wrote Sean Donahue of the Massachusetts Anti-Corporate Clearinghouse.¹³

Kerry’s foreign policy arguments are driven less by "electability" and more out of agreement over policy goals. The Democratic Party has signed off on the same imperial project–ensuring U.S. control over Iraq’s oil resources, setting new terms for U.S. hegemony in the Middle East, and using the "war on terror" as a means for projecting U.S. power internationally. Yet it is also clear that the neocons have bungled the effort, and this is where Kerry comes in. When he argues that he is for a "stronger, more comprehensive, and more effective strategy for winning the War on Terror than the Bush Administration has ever envisioned,"¹⁴ he is pitching to the ruling class that he can restore the allied support for, legitimacy to, and renewed strength of, America’s imperial agenda.

The apologists for Kerry are therefore mistaken in arguing that the Bush Doctrine is the work of a small coterie of right-wing neocons. It is in fact the policy of the ruling class, and therefore, a bipartisan policy. The problem for Kerry is not the invasion of Iraq, it is the bungling of the invasion of Iraq. For the growing numbers of powerful politicians and businessmen who have abandoned Bush for Kerry, the issue is how to get the war on terror back on track, not how to scuttle it. That explains why Bush and Kerry’s positions are converging: Bush wants to fix his mistakes; Kerry wants to convince the ruling class that he will be the better fixer.

Kerry began his political career after returning from serving in Vietnam as an opponent of the war. "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?" Kerry asked in a 1971 Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing. "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"¹⁵ But Kerry soon turned his back on the antiwar movement–to pursue his career as a liberal Washington politician.

Lately he has gone out of his way to make sure no one thinks he’s a liberal either. Accused of being a liberal by one moderator during the February Democratic debate in New York City, Kerry snapped, "It’s absolutely the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen in my life." He then backed up this statement with a long list of less-than-liberal credentials, including "deficit reduction" and putting "100,000 police officers on the streets of America."16

During his nineteen-year Senate career, Kerry cast a number of liberal votes–for example, he voted against Clinton’s antigay Defense of Marriage Act and has opposed bans on the late-term abortion procedure that the anti-abortion fanatics have purposely misnamed "partial birth" abortion. These have won Kerry the reputation of being a liberal. But for Kerry, this is a credential that can be easily discarded.

Campaigning in 1984, Kerry called for canceling weapons systems such as the B-1 bomber, B-2 stealth bomber, the Apache helicopter, and the Patriot missile. Today, he calls his position at the time "ill-advised, and I think some of them are stupid in the context of the world we find ourselves in right now and the things that I’ve learned since then."¹⁷ In 1983, Kerry harshly criticized Ronald Reagan’s order to invade Grenada. "I was dismissive of the majesty of the invasion of Grenada," Kerry says today. "But I basically was supportive. I never publicly opposed it."¹⁸

Kerry has also taken some positions that are far from liberal. In 1992, Kerry warned an audience at his alma mater, Yale University (where he, like Bush, was a member of the Skull and Bones society), about a

By the mid—1990s, Kerry increasingly aligned himself with the "New Democrat" wing of the Democratic Party like Clinton. The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which was founded by Southern and Western Democrats and their corporate lobbyists after the Democrats’ landslide Michael Dukakis defeat in 1984. Its goal was to "turn the party around" by purging itself of the image of the party of "special interests"–in other words, women’s and civil rights groups and trade unions. The party, DLC leaders argued, had gone too far to the left and had to be pulled into the "mainstream."

Kerry’s position on affirmative action, for example, was completely in line with that of the Clinton administration’s, with its concentration on "personal responsibility" as an excuse to justify cuts in social spending.

One of the best examples of the DLC agenda in practice is the Clinton administration’s dismantling of welfare with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. In one fell swoop, Clinton reversed many of the gains of the New Deal and threw millions of people off of the welfare rolls with tough new rules and work restrictions. And Clinton, as a Democrat, was able to accomplish all this without even so much as a picket from liberal organizations.

Kerry backed Clinton’s welfare "reform" bill to the hilt. He also helped push through Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill, which promised to put 100,000 cops on the streets, and the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which expanded the number of crimes punishable by the death penalty. Clinton’s antiterrorism bill also prohibited fundraising for vaguely defined "terrorist" organizations and loosened rules against the deportation of legal immigrants–years before the Bush administration thought of pushing through even more repressive provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act.

When the Republicans took over Congress in Newt Gingrich’s so-called "Republican revolution" of 1994, Kerry blamed the Democratic Party. "I want this change," Kerry told the Boston Herald. "The Democrats have articulated…a very poor agenda. It’s hard for me to believe that some of these guys could have been as either arrogant or obtuse as to not know where the American people were coming from."²⁰ Kerry argued that Democrats were being punished for suggesting policies that were too liberal, such as universal health care.

Kerry said recently of Clinton’s health care program, "I mean, I’ve learned the lessons of 1993. I didn’t even sign on to the Clinton (health plan) in 1993. I looked at it and said "Whoa. Too many boxes. Too bureaucratic. Too much government."²¹

Commenting on his current health care proposal, Kerry told the Wall Street Journal,

So it wasn’t that much of a stretch for Kerry to step over partisan lines in 2002 and vote for Bush’s education proposal, the misnamed No Child Left Behind Act, which shortchanged struggling public schools.

Under Clinton, abortion access declined steadily. It’s likely that Kerry will stand by while this happens as well. He opposes abortion personally, but defends it on the basis that it is the law. Recent comments from Kerry put into question whether he is really all that dedicated to preserving abortion as the law of the land. Kerry, a devout Catholic who says he once considered becoming a priest, said in May that he might even appoint an anti-abortion Supreme Court justice if it provided necessary "balance" to the Court.

Bragging that he voted to confirm Antonin Scalia in 1986, Kerry told reporters that he has voted in favor of "any number of judges who are pro-life or pro-something else that I may not agree with," some of whom were nominated by Republican presidents. Asked about future Court picks if he’s offered the chance, Kerry said, "Do they have to agree with me on everything? No…that doesn’t mean that if that’s not the balance of the court I wouldn’t be prepared ultimately to appoint somebody to some court who has a different point of view. I’ve already voted for people like that. I voted for Judge Scalia."²³

Kerry made his abysmal position on gay marriage clear in the run-up to the issuing of first same-sex marriage in U.S. history in his home state of Massachusetts after the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled that "separate is seldom equal" also applied to marriage rights. Kerry used this historic moment to say that, while he was in favor of civil unions for gays and lesbians, he was opposed to actual marriage. "I oppose gay marriage and disagree with the Massachusetts court’s decision,’’ Kerry said in February.²⁴ Kerry also said that he believed that the decision whether to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples should be "left up to the states," the same argument that Southern segregationists used to argue against integrating public schools.

The primary difference at this point between Clinton and Kerry’s campaigns is that Clinton disguised his DLC politics with liberal rhetoric in order improve his electoral prospects, whereas Kerry has dispensed even with that.

"Democrats can’t love jobs and hate the people who create jobs," was Kerry’s not-so-coded message to corporate backers at a stump speech in Bedford, N.H.²⁵

Even his plan to create more jobs is a sop to corporations. He wants to create ten million new jobs in the U.S.–by awarding tax credits to companies that move their investments back to the U.S. He also favors another capital gains tax cut.

When Kerry had the opportunity to really help workers in May, when the Senate voted on an amendment to tax legislation that would have extended unemployment for 1.5 million workers who have used up their benefits since December 31, he didn’t. Kerry was on the campaign trail when the amendment failed–by one vote.

And forget about counting on Kerry if you’re a teacher. The Democrat’s proposal to "fix" troubled schools includes ending tenure for public school teachers.

Personally Kerry would know little about what it’s like to have to work to make ends meet. Thanks in part to the riches of his wife, ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry, the richest of all senators lives in an elegant Georgetown house when he’s "working" in Washington. The couple can choose to vacation at Heinz homes on Nantucket Harbor and in the mountains of Idaho, both easily accessible in their private jet. Forbes magazine put the Kerrys’ net worth at more than $550 million in 2002.²⁶

With nineteen years as a senator serving on several senate committees, Kerry has a long, proven relationship with the people who reign over the corporate boardrooms. In addition to the transportation and health care industries, Kerry has powerful ties to lobbyists for the telecommunications industry. Michael Whouley, a Kerry political aide, is a lobbyist for telecom giant AT&T.

Kerry has also accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Boston lobbying firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo–where Kerry’s brother is a lawyer–which represents communications firms and the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. Not surprisingly, Kerry voted in favor of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that is responsible for massive media consolidation and huge cable television fee increases.

If Kerry initially tossed a little anti-corporate rhetoric into his stump speeches, Wall Street wasn’t all that worried about it. "The anti-business message bothers me and I’m going to talk to him about that," John Catsimatidis, chief executive of food-and-oil conglomerate Red Apple Group, told the Wall Street Journal. "But…you’re never going to have the perfect candidate."²⁷

"I’m calling everyone I know and telling them that they have to give," said Stephen Robert of Robert Capital Management Group, Inc., a self-identified moderate Republican who was one of about twenty potential fundraisers at a private dinner with Kerry in New York in February. "Every day, moderate Republicans call me and say, ‘I want to get on board.’"²⁸

Kerry’s assurance to high rollers at a $25,000-a-plate breakfast fundraiser at the posh "21" Club in Manhattan to "fear not," because "I am not a redistribution Democrat… who wants to go back and make the mistakes of the Democratic Party of 20, 25 years ago,"²⁹ stands as the signature messages of his campaign to America’s rich. I’m one of you, he is telling them. I will continue to cut social spending and transfer wealth from poor to rich. The profits that you have amassed at the expense of workers over the past two decades will be safe in my administration.

Anybody but Bush?

Well over a year before it was clear who the Democratic Party nominee would be, liberals and even some on the Left were already warning of the dangers of not supporting a Democrat to oust Bush. And now that Kerry–who is the farthest thing from a "movement choice"–is the man who has been anointed to beat Bush, the push is on to coerce progressives into supporting him.

Mark Green, a former Nader Raider consumer activist, argued "the minor differences between the Democratic nominee and me on Iraq are microscopic compared to the chasm between me and Bush."³⁰ Unfortunately, this argument has had an effect. Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, said that among antiwar activists there is "a lot of murmuring" about Kerry’s posture on Iraq. But Borosage, who disagrees with Kerry on sending more troops to Iraq, predicted the activists ultimately will support the Democrat. "People see very clearly this time what the stakes are in this election," he said. "Bush unifies progressives with Kerry the way Clinton unified conservatives."³¹

Unfortunately, even renowned opponent of U.S. imperialism Noam Chomsky has made this argument. "Kerry is sometimes described as ‘Bush-lite,’ which is not inaccurate," Chomsky said in an interview with the British Guardian online. "But despite the limited differences both domestically and internationally, there are differences. In a system of immense power, small differences can translate into large outcomes."³²

This is exactly what Kerry and the Democratic Party establishment are hoping for. "People are so desperate to get rid of Bush that they are going to cut the Democratic candidate a lot of slack," Representative Jerrold Nadler, a liberal Democrat from Manhattan who opposed the war, told the New York Times.³³

Joe Trippi, who was Howard Dean’s campaign manager, said he didn’t think that Kerry’s position on the war would hurt him. "On the war, I don’t think there’s a problem there at all," Trippi told the New York Times. "Even the Nader fanatics won’t do it because of George Bush. They don’t want another four years of this guy."³⁴

"Kerry has less of a problem on the left in the Democratic Party than any Democratic candidate in my memory, which goes back to [John F.] Kennedy," said Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.). "The proof of that is I am less busy this presidential campaign than other ones. I’m not being sent out to calm down the left."³⁵

Underlying all the election-year lowering of expectations is the fact that millions of people are fed up with Bush and his war in Iraq. A May 11 Gallup poll showed Bush’s approval rating had fallen to 46 percent, the lowest of his presidency. Support for the war in Iraq slipped to 44 percent–a new low.

Pollster John Zogby made the point that that it would seem for Kerry that there would be a mathematical logic to calling for withdrawal. "His support corresponds almost in a one-on-one ratio with those who oppose the war."³⁶

Kerry could capitalize on this deep dissatisfaction with the Bush agenda, but, unless be feels forced to make a drastic shift in the campaign, he won’t. It’s not simply that Kerry wants to appear more "electable" or that he’s more interested in peeling off conservatives who usually vote for the Republican. Kerry’s pro-war, pro-business campaign is a message to the U.S. ruling class that, if Bush doesn’t make it back into the White House, then Kerry is a perfectly good alternative. The Democratic Party candidate is a second good option for American business, U.S. imperialism, and the status quo–Plan B.

So far, it appears that Kerry might even be willing to risk losing the election to prove this point. As the Washington Post’s Terry Neal pointed out, "Essentially Kerry’s argument is not over whether the United States should have gone to war in Iraq–since he continues to insist his vote was the right one–or whether the United States should stay in Iraq and finish the job.… If Bush and Kerry differ little on the major issue of the day, what rationale do voters have for a change?"³⁷

As conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, pointed out,

The U.S. ruling class may have it’s Plan B alternative in Kerry, but for activists who have spent the last few years opposing the rotten policies of the Bush administration, Kerry is no choice at all. Many activists will vote for Kerry simply because he is not Bush, but, as the record showed, if they vote for Kerry they’ll still get Bush.

Others believe that having a Democrat in office will mean that at least there is someone who will to listen to our side. So far, Kerry has proven the opposite–the Left’s support can be taken for granted. Ultimately, this means that our side ends up weaker, not stronger. In the run-up to elections, activists are always asked to fold up shop in order to not embarrass the Democrat. Once in office, activism again must be put on the backburner to "give the Democrat time." In the run-up to the April "March for Women’s Lives" protest in Washington, D.C., liberal women’s groups like the National Organization for Women (NOW) bragged that they had not organized a national protest in twelve years. During that time–under Democrat Clinton–abortion rights were chipped away, restriction by restriction and state by state, and no liberal women’s organization called a protest.

Activists who attended the April demonstration got a good idea of what kind of stress groups like NOW and NARAL Pro-Choice America would be putting on grassroots activism–absolutely none. March organizers made sure that the event, which turned out a massive crowd of one million people, amounted to little more than a rally for John Kerry. If Kerry gets into office, how long will NOW give him time to defend access to abortion?

Likewise with the issue of gay marriage. A promising movement around it, with "mass marriages" and demonstrations, could be flourishing at this moment if not for the tremendous pressure from leading Democrats such as Barney Frank who have argued that now (i.e., during an election) isn’t the time to protest.

But the biggest chill that the anybody but Bush atmosphere leading up to the November election is creating is around the question of the occupation of Iraq, where there is a tremendous gap between the intensity of crisis at the top and the lack of organized antiwar resistance from below.

Bush’s popularity is plummeting as the torture scandal goes from bad to worse; and the occupation is in shambles. But rather than encouraging struggles for justice–opposition to the occupation in Iraq, for abortion rights, for workers’ rights–the Democratic Party is discouraging them. When progressives are asked to hold their nose and vote for Kerry, they are being coerced not only into setting aside the issues they care about, but supporting a candidate who represents the opposite values–a candidate who is pro-war and pro-business to his core. In exchange for demobilization, we get somebody else’s agenda. This is why we need to build an activist opposition to Washington’s rotten policies–whether a Democrat or a Republican is making them.

1 Adam Nagourney, "Democrats Wonder if Kerry Should Stay on Careful Path," New York Times, May 27, 2004.

2 Adam Nagourney and Richard Stevenson, "Candidates’ Iraq Policies Share Many Similarities," New York Times, May 26, 2004.

3 Remarks by John Kerrry, "Radio Address to the nation," April 17, 2004, available online at http://johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/_spc_2004_0417.html.

4 Terry M. Neal, "Kerry’s Iraq Policy Makes the War Issue Bush’s to Lose," Washington Post, April 16, 2004.

5 Jacob M. Schlesinger, "Kerry’s Mission: Show He Can Lead," Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2004.

6 Ibid.

7 Speech by John Kerry, Washington, D.C., March 17, 2004, transcript on www.johnkerry.com.

8 "Fighting a Comprehensive War on Terrorism," Remarks by Senator John Kerry at the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations, February 27, 2004, available at http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/_spc_2004_0227.html.

9 Dan Balz, "Kerry Says He Would Add 40,000 to Army," Washington Post, Friday, June 4, 2004.

10 Ibid.

11 "Fighting a Comprehensive War on Terrorism."

12 Tim Russert interviews John Kerry, Meet the Press, April 18, 2004.

13 Sean Donahue, "Kerry’s Drug War Zealot," Counterpunch, January 26, 2004.

14 "Fighting a Comprehensive War on Terrorism."

15 Michael Kranish, "With antiwar role, high visibility," Part 3 in "John Kerry: Candidate in the Making" series, Boston Globe, June 16, 2003.

16 Democratic Party candidate debate, February 29, 2004, New York City, transcript available on cbsnews.com.

17 Brian C. Mooney, "Taking one prize, then a bigger one," Part 5 in "John Kerry: Candidate in the Making" series, Boston Globe, June 19, 2003.

18 Ibid.

19 John Aloysius Farrell, "At the center of power, seeking the summit," in "John Kerry: Candidate in the Making" series, Boston Globe, June 21, 2003.

20 Ibid.

21 Jerry Seib, John Harwood and Jacob Schlesinger, "An Interview With John Kerry," Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2004.

22 Ibid.

23 Ron Fournier, "Kerry Open to OK Anti-Abortion Judges," Associated Press, May 19, 2004.

24 John Solomon, "Kerry opposed gay marriage ban in letter" Associated Press, February 12, 2004.

25 Speech by John Kerry, "A Workers’ Bill of Rights," Bedford, N.H., January 7, 2004, transcript at www.johnkerry.com.

26 Davide Dukcevich, "Rich Pols: A Look at America's Richest Politicians," ABC news, November 4, 2003, available at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/forbes_richpols_021104.html.

27 Ianthe Jeanne Dugan and Jeanne Cummings, "Kerry Gets a Lifeline from Wall Street," Wall Street Journal, February 17, 2004.

28 Ibid.

29 Jodi Wilgoren, "Kerry Plans Effort to Show He Is a Centrist," New York Times, April 16, 2004.

30 Farah Stockman, "Kerry faces PR fight over foreign policy," Boston Globe, April 26, 2004.

31 Ibid.

32 Matthew Tempest, "Chomsky backs ‘Bush-lite’ Kerry," The Guardian, March 20, 2004.

33 Adam Nagourney, "Why the Democrats’ Left Wing Is Muted," New York Times, May 29, 2004.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 James Harding, "Kerry avoids anti-war campaigning," Financial Times, May 11, 2004.

37 Terry M. Neal, "Kerry’s Iraq Policy Makes the War Issue Bush’s to Lose," Washington Post, April 16, 2004.

38 Charles Krauthammer, "Kerry Adrift," Washington Post, April 23, 2004.