Clinton-Gore's Kiss of Death for Kerry?

Clinton-Gore's Kiss of Death for Kerry?

Chuck Noe, NewsMax.com
Saturday, Oct. 23, 2004

Sen. John Kerry's decision to have Bill Clinton and Al Gore campaign for him could cost him the election if recent history is any indication.

Clinton's campaign appearances and the disastrous mismanagement of handpicked party boss Terry McAuliffe led to the Democrats' unprecedented losses in the midterm elections of 2002. Among the Democrat casualties of the Clinton machine: New York gubernatorial nominee Carl McCall and Florida gubernatorial nominee Bill McBride.

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Then his "assistance" backfired and helped oust California Gov. Gray Davis last year.

Gore's record of harmful "help" is almost as abysmal. Remember less than a year ago when everyone had all but crowned Howard Dean as the Democrat presidential nominee? Then Gore endorsed him.

"I actually do think the endorsement of Al Gore began the decline," Dean told CNN in February.

Despite his own former boss' similar taint, ex-Clintonista Paul Begala sniped to the New York Times, "I suppose people are going to be running away from Al Gore the way the devil runs away from holy water."

So why isn't Kerry running from Clinton and Gore as hastily as he's trying to flee his Senate record? The aloof Massachusetts blueblood does not have a stranglehold on the black vote and thinks his emissaries can deliver it for him.

The ex-president's campaigning is "less likely to mobilize anti-Clinton sentiment than it is to mobilize Democratic constituencies like African-Americans, who've been lagging in their enthusiasm for John Kerry," said Doug Schoen, who was Clinton's presidential pollster.

The Associated Press noted Friday: "Still, all the talk about Clinton's allure with black voters may be overstated. His share of the black vote - 83 percent in 1992 and 84 percent in 1996 - was less than that of every other Democratic presidential contender since John F. Kennedy."

Only Democrats May Misuse Churches as Campaign Halls

The news that the former vice president on Sunday will exploit black churches, as he and Clinton and Kerry have done before, will exacerbate another controversy. ABC reported that "it was believed he would be campaigning Sunday in a number of churches throughout Florida's African-American community."

The Anti-religious Left as well as the Religious Left, both of which raise Cain when President Bush speaks to or seeks the support of religious audiences, have been as quiet as usual about the Democrats' tactics, but others are denouncing the double standard.

A sampling of letters from NewsMax's readers:

Norma Lee, St. Joseph, Mo.: "Why doesn't someone say something about the politicking done by the Democrats in Black churches. If an evangelical church would do something like this, actually invite the candidate to come to their church without equal time for the other candidate, the ACLU and People for the American Way would be having fits and calling the IRS. Where in the world is the fairness in these elections! An evangelical pastor has to only preach on moral issues today and he is faced with threat of the IRS police."

B. Campbell, Mount Laurel, N.J.: "Please tell me why it is that Democrats can go to black churches for services and get up and campaign, but if Republicans did the same the press would be very critical. These churches do not pay taxes so what happened to separation of church and state???"

Skip Talley of Leawood, Kan.: "If Bush had campaigned at a ‘white' church as Kerry did at black churches in Florida, liberals and the ACLU would make a big deal out of it and try to get the church's tax exempt status revoked."

Christopher Garner of Miami: "John Kerry was campaigning in two African American churches this weekend in Florida. I was a little confused because I thought there was something called separation of church and state. I know that this myth is only important to liberals when a conservative is linked to a conservative Christian group or church. I e-mailed Americans United, an organization that protects us from religion getting into the public debate but so far no response. If possible could you shed some light on this seemingly contradictory stand?"

Elliot Yudenfriend, Metamora, Ill.: "I would like to know why NewsMax Magazine has not published any articles with concern to the repeated IRS violations by John Kerry in taking his campaign into churches. Doing such a thing is a blatant violation of IRS regulations which state that if a candidate campaigns at a church, his opponent must be there, too, or be given equal time."

More: Philadelphia's mayor exploits black churches for Kerry

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