Kerry meets with cardinalPage 2 of 2 -- He also lambasted the Bush administration in response to a woman who asked how he would appeal to a married woman with children who is fearful of terrorism.
"Home base for George Bush in this race, as you saw to the nth degree in his press conference, is terror. Ask him a question and he's going to go to terror. And everything he did in Iraq, he's going to try to persuade people it has to do with terror, even though everybody here knows that it has nothing whatsoever to do with Al Qaeda and everything to do with an agenda that they had preset, determined," Kerry said. "I say again and again as I campaign, I can wage a more effective war on terror than this administration." Later, during an appearance at Howard University in Washington, the senator also disputed comparisons between the Iraqi war and Vietnam -- tentatively. "It's not Vietnam yet, and I underscore 'yet,' " he told a student. "But I think this administration is making mistakes of judgment and stubbornness that increasingly push it toward the potential of developing into a much more difficult situation than it has to be." The comments prompted a retort from Marc Racicot, chairman of the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign. "Today's reckless allegation by Senator Kerry that the president is overemphasizing the threat of terror demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the global war on terror and the threat facing America and the world," Racicot said. "On a day when Osama bin Laden again threatened the United States and our allies, it is disturbing to realize that John Kerry neither recognizes nor understands the murderous ideology of our enemies and the threat that they pose to our nation." In announcing his new ad campaign, Kerry told the New York fund-raising crowd: "A lot of people still don't really know who I am." While not divulging specifics, he recalled a conversation a day earlier with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in which the former first lady recalled how little voters knew about her and her husband, Bill Clinton, after he secured his first Democratic nomination in June 1992. "The level of communication that we still need to undertake here is enormous," Kerry said. His announcement came a day after the Bush-Cheney campaign announced it is scaling back its advertising because, it believes, voters had begun to get distracted from the presidential race. Today, the Bush-Cheney campaign will end an ad that touts Bush's economic policies, as well as two commercials portraying his rival as a tax-raiser. The campaign will continue to air a spot accusing Kerry of waffling on military issues. The campaign has spent at least $50 million on television and radio ads in 18 states, the Associated Press reported.
Paulson reported from Boston. Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. |
