Democrats’ Convention Kicks Off Real 2004 Presidential Campaign
August 10, 2004

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

While former President Bill Clinton was speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Boston on July 27, I couldn’t help but think back to the days when the Republicans led the charge for the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution.

The amendment limiting future presidents of the United States to no more than two elected four-year terms of office was first proposed on Mar. 24, 1947, largely because many people, but particularly Republicans, had seen in the four election victories of President Franklin D. Roosevelt the prospect of a possible “president for life” and the demoralizing prospect of an end to the two-party system.

In the presidential election the following year, President Harry Truman, another Democrat who had been Roosevelt’s vice president, stunned the political and media world by beating New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican candidate whom many considered a shoo-in, particularly with Democrats split three ways by the independent campaigns of Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace. The Truman election would assure the Democrats of a 20-year control of the White House.

To the delight of its sponsors, the 22nd Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states and became functional on Feb. 27, 1951.

But 21 months later, Americans elected a Republican as president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was popular enough to be handily re-elected in 1956. In fact, Eisenhower was so popular, many in the GOP were gnashing their teeth over the fact that they had locked him out of a third, and even a fourth term.

Republicans were rueful again in 1988 when another Republican who was popular enough to attract many Democrats and independents for two consecutive terms in the elections of 1980 and 1984, Ronald Reagan, was prohibited from running for a third term by the 22nd Amendment.

Bill Clinton
But any Republicans who were still rueful about the two-term presidential limit and who watched Clinton’s speech on the opening night of this year’s convention of Democrats, must have thought they did the right thing after all in the late ’40s and early ’50s.

In his address to the conventioneers for the Kerry-Edwards convention, Clinton demonstrated all the natural and learned skills that had won him so many votes in 1992 and 1996, and might have won him a third term in 2000, impeachment, Monica Lewinsky and everything aside. Despite his love/hate legacy in America, Clinton has a natural magnetism that some call charisma.

Clinton looked good, relaxed and his speech was well written by whoever wrote it. But, above all, his delivery and timing were flawless. I classed it with the “I come not to praise Caesar but to bury him” speech of Mark Anthony. His convention hall audience loved it, and probably a lot of people in the television audience loved it, too.

John Kerry on the other hand probably hated it. And it was a good thing for Kerry the people who orchestrated this convention had scheduled the Clinton and Kerry speeches as far apart as possible. Their political philosophies may be almost identical, but the contrasts in appearance, vitality and speaking styles could not be greater.

On the state of the nation’s economy during his terms and immediately after, Clinton took credit for things he had really never accomplished, and blamed others for things they had never done. But that’s politics as played by both major parties which have really less to do with the economic cycles than they like to reveal to voters.

Clinton did play the gun card. Kerry, Edwards and many other Democrats may be trying to run from the gun issue this year, but Clinton made sure that neither party’s candidates can do so. He linked his “assault weapon” ban with his police program, saying that he had put more police on the streets while taking “assault weapons” off the streets. He accused President George W. Bush of taking police off the streets and putting more “assault weapons” back on the streets.

Even if Kerry and Edwards duck the gun issue, Clinton’s speech made it clear that modern Democrat leaders are still the party of civilian disarmament. He painted the Republican leadership as the party that believes in the right of law-abiding Americans to own firearms for defense and recreation.

Just in case anyone might miss the point, the Democrats have invited Rep. Carolyn McCarthy to speak at the convention and before national television audiences and her political position has only one plank: more gun control, more disarmament of the innocent.

Jimmy Carter
Before Clinton spoke, former President Jimmy Carter addressed his fellow Democrats and the nation. Carter was never a great speaker and he seems to be less so in his early 80s. But Carter tried to cast Kerry, the decorated Vietnam veteran, in the same mold as Truman and Eisenhower, two highly regarded former presidents who served honorably in the military. To a lesser degree, Clinton played that card as well but had to admit that he, too, did not serve when his country called for military service.

Later, a former shipmate of Kerry’s in Vietnam who is now a minister, also spoke of Kerry’s courage under fire. But that is an appeal to voters that is a two-edged sword. There are many of Kerry’s fellow Vietnam veterans who have a different story to tell. Some of them may demonstrate outside the convention hall in Boston. Others will be sponsoring a conference in Boston during the Democrats’ convention in the hope of dispelling some of the “myths” anti-war activists, including candidate Kerry, have spread about the Vietnam War.

Vietnam Veterans
A military-history organization is sponsoring a conference entitled “Examining the Myths of the Vietnam War” that was scheduled to be held at Simmons College in Boston for four days corresponding with the Democrats’ convention there. Sponsored by the RADIX Foundation, it is being billed as “a veteran-funded, non-profit, multicultural and non-political event.”

“By conducting this conference,” says the promotional material, “we would . . . like to afford the 15,000 media personnel at the nominating convention an opportunity to hear factual, first-hand accounts of Vietnam as well as some things that many of us have held back for many decades.”

Organizers hope to combat those they say have “mis-portrayed” the history of the Vietnam War.

“As Senator John Kerry is about to be nominated for president, in great part based on his Vietnam service,” the conference website says, “it is important for the American people to understand what ‘Vietnam’ was really about and to dispel some of the common misconceptions about why we went to war, what we did, what went wrong, and why it mattered.”

Many Vietnam veterans have passionately rebutted Kerry’s 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which he made horrific claims about alleged atrocities committed by American service members in Southeast Asia.

But that won’t be the end of the Vietnam-Kerry debate during the campaign. A couple of other veterans’ groups plan to wade into the issue during the campaign. One of them is called Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, which has a website: www.swiftvets.com. Another is Vietnam Vets for the Truth which has a website at: www.kerrylied.com.

On Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes show on May 28, Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman (USN, ret.) accused Kerry of being a traitor because of his anti-war activities in the 1970s. Hoffman, the former commander of the Swift Boat force and one-time Kerry’s superior officer, is chairman of Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth.

Vietnam Vets for the Truth claims to have been established for the sole purpose of organizing a rally pointing up Kerry’s lies during the so-called Winter Soldier hearings in the US Senate in 1971. The rally, called “Kerry Lied,” will be held on Capitol Hill on Sept. 12.

In spite of the Carter and Clinton rhetoric, the road to the White House looks to get much rougher as the campaign wears on.