Momma Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Vote Kerry

Elections are a beautiful thing. Even if you don't favor someone, there's always a candidate to oppose. So for you undecideds out there, via Instapundit, here's two intelligent and extensive lists of reasons to vote against the Haughty Hairdo.

First from his regular column in web-zine Slate, Democrat pundit Mickey Kaus:

Kerry has been a conspicuous non-performer in the legislation department. Time magazine found exactly "three substantive bills passed with Kerry's name on them" Two of these "had to do with marine research and protecting fisheries." (The other was "designed to provide grants for women starting small businesses.") . . .

The great question for Kerry biographers is how a man who showed bravery on the battlefield could demonstrate so little of it in his political life. . . This is why the oft-told story of Kerry protesting the Vietnam war by throwing someone else's medals away resonates uncomfortably. Kerry wasn't willing to take the risk of parting with his own medals. They might come in handy some day! Even in his moment of maximum political bravado he was cautious. . .

Kerry has a tendency to play the voters for fools--letting them think he's Irish (when he's not) or letting them think he's cleaner, in the campaign contribution department, than he really is.(e.g., saying he takes no PAC money but accepting unlimited "soft money" contributions to his Citizen Soldier Fund.) Or letting them think he gave up his own medals. ....

All this means is that when President Kerry gets into trouble--when his first big proposals stall in Congress, when malaise or scandal arrives--he won't necessarily have the ability to go to the public and dig himself out. He'll be through, over.

The second list comes from the reporter most familiar with Kerry's record--Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe:

No one doubts Kerry's physical courage. He is a Vietnam veteran, with a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts that attest to his battlefield bravery. But courage in combat doesn't necessarily translate into courage on the Senate floor or the campaign trail. That kind of courage -- the courage of a leader who knows his own mind and speaks it fearlessly, who doesn't trim with every shifting breeze, who doesn't court unpopularity but isn't afraid of it, either -- has never been a hallmark of Kerry's career.

Every few days, we seem to get a fresh example (or a resurrected old one) of Kerry brazenly revising his history, or declaring "flip" from one side of his mouth while asserting "flop" out of the other. . .

In 1992, Kerry insisted that Bill Clinton's draft avoidance during the Vietnam War must not be made a political issue. "We do not need to divide America over who served and how," he said. In 2004, not only doesn't he silence Democrats who disparage George W. Bush's military record, he goes out of his way to play the Vietnam card. "I'd like to know what it is Republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam have against those of us who did," Kerry said last week. Profile in courage?

As he campaigns for president, Kerry says he has "a message for the influence peddlers . . . and all the special interests who now call the White House home: We're coming. You're going. And don't let the door hit you on the way out." Yet over the past 15 years, reports The Washington Post, this enemy of "influence peddlers" has raised more money from paid lobbyists than any other member of the US Senate. Profile in courage?

Under fire in Vietnam, Kerry was fearless. But rarely if ever has he shown comparable bravery on the political battlefields at home. It is difficult to think of any instance in which he has taken a tough stand and stuck with it despite the clear political risk in doing so. Instead, time and time again, he has tried to have it both ways -- from the medals he threw away/didn't throw away to the wars in Iraq he supported/didn't support. At the age of 25, John Kerry's courage was indisputable. Now, at age 60, it is more or less undetectable.

Showing similar courage now that the primaries are essentially over, Thursday's New York Times endorsed Senator Kerry for the Democratic nomination. But I get the feeling their heart wasn't in it:

[S]o far in this campaign Mr. Kerry has shown little interest in being daring, expressing a thought that is unexpected or quirky on even minor issues. We wish we could see a little of the political courage of the Vietnam hero who came back to lead the fight against the war.

When the most partisan liberal organization in America is this tepid, Democrats should be very afraid. This November, even if you don't support Bush, vote against Kerry.