Why am I supporting John Kerry? Because despite the decency, fairness, and generosity of our people, America has never been more feared and despised in the world than it is today.
Because future generations of Americans are now saddled with budget deficits so crippling, their opportunities for financial security are gravely imperiled.
Because the United States has now proclaimed a new foreign policy, the Bush Doctrine, which embraces a theory of “preemptive war,” even when the United States has not been threatened with attack, as in the case of Iraq.
Because as a nation we are less equal, less prosperous, and less secure than we were just four years ago. Indeed, we are more divided, more vulnerable, and more impoverished. While this is not altogether the fault of George W. Bush, no other individual bears greater responsibility.
John Kerry was not my first choice to be the nominee of the Democratic Party. He wasn’t even my second choice, primarily because of his confusing stance on the war. Enough was known at the time about the intentions of the Bush administration to warrant a refusal to grant them the authority to invade Iraq. It was already evident that an invasion would squander the support of most of our allies and risk the precarious gains we had made in the war on terror. Yet Kerry made his choice, and his subsequent explanations for that vote have been wanting both in clarity and consistency. It is especially difficult to square his support for the Iraq resolution with his vote against a similar grant of authority in the Kuwait war, which involved a legitimate exercise of power to uphold international law and which, accordingly, had the support of most of the world.
His record on abortion is also troubling, not so much on account of his endorsement of Roe v. Wade, as for his lack of initiative to reduce the number of abortions. We could do so much more to reduce this tragedy by providing greater assistance to mothers in need of assistance for their children. No other developed nation does so little for such a vulnerable population. Even if you grant that abortion should be legal in order to be safe, it is nevertheless incumbent on a moral society to make abortions rare by offering women means of support to care sufficiently for their children.
But on a range of other issues both broad and deep, Senator Kerry’s public record is vastly superior to that of President Bush. And on matters of character and judgment, which are harder to quantify, but more important than any Senate vote, I believe that Kerry is far more likely to lead America wisely, to protect our liberty, and to restore our honor.
Presidential elections involving an incumbent are invariably a referendum of sorts. Ronald Reagan’s famous debate question, “Ask yourself if you are better off now than you were four years ago,” is a fair one. Only the wealthiest segment of the country could reasonably answer yes today. For the poor, the working and middle classes, life is notably more difficult and the future is strikingly more uncertain.
The president who campaigned as a “compassionate conservative,” as “a uniter, not a divider,” turned immediately after his election to a governing strategy designed to appease the most conservative elements of his political base. It is as though he needed somehow to repudiate the record of his father, who respected alliances and was fiscally responsible. Karl Rove, the White House political director, has made no secret of his view that the president’s father erred in governing as a moderate.
The greater shock, however, has been the degree to which a hard core of extremists, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, gained control of U.S. foreign policy and upended some of our most basic values. It is hard to imagine that Colin Powell had any idea what he was signing on for as secretary of state, given the very different record of the previous Bush administration. The majority of military and diplomatic professionals in government had grave concerns about the wisdom of going into Iraq with such flawed assumptions and poor planning. Now we are left to cope with the bitter fruit of the ideologues’ arrogance: the worst foreign-policy disaster for the United States in thirty years. It seems wholly irrational to return to office an administration that has failed so thoroughly the test of national security.
Kerry has an even stronger case to make in domestic policy. On the budget, tax cuts, trade policy, and more, this has been the most radical administration of my lifetime. Kerry deserves particular credit for his proposal to address a crisis in health care that has left 45 million Americans without insurance protection. His health plan would extend coverage to 95 percent of the population, including every child. It is affordable; it would be paid in part by repealing tax cuts showered on the wealthiest Americans by President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress. By covering the uninsured, we have the prospect of improving quality and controlling health costs, which now threaten our economic recovery.
Under the Clinton administration, the number of Americans living in poverty declined an average of 800,000 per year. Under President Bush, the number has increased an average of 1.5 million per year. The average annual job growth under Clinton was 2.83 million; under Bush, the average annual decline has been 450,000. The annual average surplus in the Clinton years was $5 billion, and the annual average deficit under Bush is now a staggering $350 billion. When the Baby Boomers begin to retire, it will get much, much worse.
The environmental record of the Bush administration is a special cause for alarm, especially for future generations who will have to live with the consequences. A cavalier disregard for the effects of global climate change, symbolized by rejection of the Kyoto treaty; repeated efforts to drill for oil and gas in sensitive ecosystems; and opening the national forests for massive new logging operations are all fraught with peril. For communities of faith, this degradation challenges the biblical injunction for us to be stewards of the Earth and all that lives on it.
At this writing, the polls show President Bush with a lead. But I think Kerry will win, and win decisively. I am reminded of the late 1970s, when the Democratic Party began to lose a significant part of the Catholic vote because of abortion. Most public opinion polls failed to pick up the shift immediately because of limitations in polling methodology with small samples-they underestimate the defection of vertical slices of the electorate. This time it is a part of the Republican base that is quietly defecting-moderate conservatives who are dismayed by events in Iraq and the size of the budget deficits. I have yet to hear someone who voted for Gore the last time say he or she is supporting Bush this time. But I frequently hear the opposite, and Gore won the popular vote the last time.
John Kerry isn’t ideal. What politician is? But he has served our country with distinction throughout his career. George Bush is neither stupid nor evil, as some would have it. But his conduct of the war and the direction of the economy are a reflection of underlying incompetence. I am not aware of any president whose second term was much of an improvement, especially when the first term was seriously compromised. Changing leaders now is less risky than sticking with folly for four more years.
In this time of danger, I will vote my hopes, not my fears. As the Bard of New Jersey, AKA Bruce Springsteen, wrote in his endorsement of Kerry-Edwards, “Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.”
