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Kerry, Edwards squabble on trade, Nader runs
Washington, Feb 23: Democratic presidential contenders John Kerry and John Edwards squabbled over their views on trade and their foreign policy experience, while Ralph Nader threw a wild card into the election picture by announcing an independent White House bid.
Washington, Feb 23: Democratic presidential contenders John Kerry and John Edwards squabbled over their views on trade and their foreign policy experience, while Ralph Nader threw a wild card into the election picture by announcing an independent White House bid.
Kerry and Edwards looked ahead to a March 2 ''Super Tuesday''
showdown in 10 states by offering wildly different interpretations
of their trade stances. Kerry declared them ''exactly the same,''
and Edwards said, ''We have a very different record on this issue.''
Nader, the veteran consumer rights advocate whose 2000 third-party presidential bid is blamed by many Democrats for helping elect President George W. Bush, yesterday said he would make an independent run this year despite pleas to stay out of the race.
''Washington is corporate-occupied territory, and the two parties are ferociously competing to see who is going to go to the White House and take orders from their corporate paymasters,'' Nader yesterday said.
He rejected claims he would spoil democratic efforts to unseat Bush.
Bush's re-election team, meanwhile, said he would begin to shift to a more aggressive mode this week to take on critics after weeks of democratic attacks that have contributed to slumping job approval ratings.
He will deliver a more confrontational stump speech beginning today, aides said, and will begin to buy television advertising time on March 04, two days after the potentially decisive showdown for the Democrats on Super Tuesday.
Kerry, the odds-on favorite for the nomination to face Bush after winning 15 of the first 17 contests, defended his national security record against Republican attacks.
''It's curious to me how angry they get and how sort of, they throw patriotism around,'' the four-term Senator from Massachusetts said. “ Kerry was attacked by Georgia's Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss on Saturday for voting to cut defense programs in the U.S. Senate.”
''I don't know what it is that all these republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam ... have against those of us who did,'' Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, said.
Bureau Report
Nader, the veteran consumer rights advocate whose 2000 third-party presidential bid is blamed by many Democrats for helping elect President George W. Bush, yesterday said he would make an independent run this year despite pleas to stay out of the race.
''Washington is corporate-occupied territory, and the two parties are ferociously competing to see who is going to go to the White House and take orders from their corporate paymasters,'' Nader yesterday said.
He rejected claims he would spoil democratic efforts to unseat Bush.
Bush's re-election team, meanwhile, said he would begin to shift to a more aggressive mode this week to take on critics after weeks of democratic attacks that have contributed to slumping job approval ratings.
He will deliver a more confrontational stump speech beginning today, aides said, and will begin to buy television advertising time on March 04, two days after the potentially decisive showdown for the Democrats on Super Tuesday.
Kerry, the odds-on favorite for the nomination to face Bush after winning 15 of the first 17 contests, defended his national security record against Republican attacks.
''It's curious to me how angry they get and how sort of, they throw patriotism around,'' the four-term Senator from Massachusetts said. “ Kerry was attacked by Georgia's Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss on Saturday for voting to cut defense programs in the U.S. Senate.”
''I don't know what it is that all these republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam ... have against those of us who did,'' Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, said.
Bureau Report