May 27, 2004
John Kerry for President
901 15th Street, NW
7th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
Dear Senator Kerry and Staff:
Please accept my campaign contribution of $1. Please use it to buy yourself a coffee you can sip while reading my letter.
I am sorry I am writing to you and not to Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich. Your spineless support, and the spineless support by many members of Congress, for both the invasion of Iraq and the imposition of the Patriot Act brought us to this point. We have a system of checks and balances, and you simply didn’t do your job in checking the power of the president.
There’s not much to like about your campaign, aside from future Supreme Court appointments. This might be the only advantage to voting for you.
I have read your campaign positions on your website and you are either holding back or being so cagey about what you’d really do that it’s impossible to truly distinguish your positions from Mr. Bush’s. This morning’s Boston Globe reports you chastising Mr. Bush about potential terrorist attacks: “President not doing enough, Kerry says” Well, Mr. Kerry, what would you do?
You do the same on Iraq. But what really distinguishes you from Bush on Iraq? All you’ve really said is that you don’t like the way he’s run things. Many Republicans echo that sentiment too, but guess who they’re going to support? And what exactly would you do differently? Your campaign materials say you’d drag NATO into this mess. But NATO says they’re already over-committed. Europeans characterize your plan as not being invited to the dinner, then being asked to clean up the dishes. Your plan sounds as credible as the “secret” Nixon plan.
And why have you not unveiled a comprehensive energy plan? Not the usual tired old energy incentives, but a sweeping plan as bold as the space program? It seems to me that our oil addiction is the only reason we have “interests in the region.” We need to be able to get the hell out of the Middle East and create balanced relations with both Israel and the Arab world.
And why do you continue to support Israel uncritically? I’ve seen your positions on your own website and also seen a survey you sent back to an Arab-American group, and you don’t even support Israeli withdrawal from illegal settlements! If you’re afraid of losing the Jewish vote, well, you’re already in danger of losing my Jewish vote. Because the only thing that will truly make Israel secure is a moderate Israeli government dealing with a moderate Palestinian leadership. And this excludes religious fanatics from both sides, both armed Jewish settlers and armed Islamic militants. They’re all nutcases.
Sure, everyone wants health care and education. I’ve heard you talk about the $29 billion you want to reallocate to education from an end of tax credits to the very wealthy. But I haven’t heard a truly coherent plan for health care, just the expansion of a patchwork of entitlement programs.
As a former (and not by choice) programmer, I appreciate your remarks on outsourcing and on “leveling the playing field.” However, I feel the real crisis in our country is that we have lost a domestic manufacturing core that keeps other support and service industries here to serve them. Fix the manufacturing hemorrhage and you’ll fix a lot more. But then you have to have a PLAN for that. If you have one, talk about it.
In the coming weeks and days you need to truly differentiate yourself from the Bush campaign. On the surface you both wave the flag and talk about non-specifics, profess concern for education and health care. You need to unleash an attack on militarism and bigotry, talk about a new social contract, talk about a plan to GET OUT OF IRAQ altogether, unveil real energy, health, and education programs, and introduce voters to a potential Presidential cabinet who will be implementing them. If you play it too close to the vest, you’ll lose. As much as voters hate being lied to, they need a reason to switch allegiance.
I don’t care whether you threw your medals away or whether Bush didn’t show up for National Guard service. I don’t care if either one of you inhales or cheats on his wife. I am interested in ideas, vision, and the courage to go out on a limb and risk it all to put those ideas forward because they are the right things to do. My doubts about you are that you just hedge your bets, play the game, and buckle when it’s time to stand up against wars and threats to civil liberties.
Don’t make me vote for a lesser of the two evils. I’m tired of voting for evils in any form. Do what’s right and you’ll have my support. Because if there are no candidates with a vision worth voting for, any vote is a wasted one.
Sincerely,
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