Why is Kerry targeting "Special Interests" ?
 

I am a democrat, yet I am baffled by Kerry's attacks on special interest. I think pretty much everyone these days realizes that ALL politcians, particularly those running expensive presidential races, are heavily funded by special interests.

Do any other democrats believe Kerry should re-think all this attention on special interests?

I agree. I think it is just part of the issue shell game that most politicians play in an attempt to appeal to the most voters. It just proves that kerry is playing the politics game, rather than showing his true colors. True colors won't get you elected though.

He's trying to portray Bush as the "special interest candidate" and himself as a reformer. Not surprising since he (and the rest of the Democratic candidates) haven't found enough to really push people away from voting for Bush. They are simply trying to find issues that will resonate with voters. Unfortunately I don't think this is one of them.

Politicians are jack asses, that should solve any question you'll ever have about politics.

Guess we can shut the forum down now, can't we?

I think he's saying it because it needs to be said. Politicians all have special interests, the ones with guts are those who can say to their special interests "This [whatever] isn't going to happen the way you want to happen." Clinton and the former Bush are decent examples of this, the current Bush is a stunning example of the opposite, and it deserves fair play in the campaign.

Kerry and his advisors feel that at this stage of the campaign, when he is trying to appear as the eventual nominee, they should be running against Bush not the other Dems. They also believe that this is an issue which Democratic Primary Voters (a decidedly anti-Bush group) will connect with. It will be interesting to see if this remains a major issue if he does indeed become the nominee. My guess is that he will be addressing issues like job loss and international relations and primarily defending himself from the Bush onslaught (which will be hard-hitting and ferocious).

John Kerry has taken more money from Special Interest Groups then most. It is that he doesnt like Bush's choice of special interest groups.

I know that the people who run this forum don't like to click on links, but if anyone is interested, here is a good web site about money and contributions to political canidates, especially those in the Presidential race: http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/index.asp
click on it if you wish, if not as I have told, just move on to the next post.

yep.....don't worry, kerry will change his opinion soon...always does when it's in his best "interest" to be on the popular bandwagon of the minute.

Uhh.. he is? One word: China.

Then again, Dubya is spooning with China as well, so he is just as bad if not worse than Clinton.

So, we all agree that they all do it... And you can always count on at least one candidate per major campaign to raise the special interest issue... So maybe they are keeping each other honest to some degree? How much worse would the lobbyist influence be if candidates didn't have to count on getting called to task during reelection? Special interests are inevitable in a redistibutive government system (meaning money is contributed into a place that hands it back out in the form of funding or programs). At least with these jokers pretending to buck the system there is some transparency and accountability.