NewsMax Wires
Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Story Continues Below

  His wife, a first-term New York senator, drew boisterous cheers from a hall packed to capacity when she said the country needs a "new commander in chief named John Kerry."

The Massachusetts senator "will lead the world, not alienate it. Lower the deficit, not raise it. Create good jobs, not lose them. Solve a health care crisis, not ignore it," she said in remarks prepared for her turn at the speaker's podium.

The party's 44th national convention opened under extraordinarily tight security as Kerry campaigned in Florida. In a battleground state he has visited more than a half-dozen times this year, he urged Republicans and independents to "stop and think" before casting their votes in November.

Opening night criticism of Bush blended with oratory designed to present Kerry as a man who chose to serve his country - and became a hero under fire.

"Lt. Kerry was known for taking the fight to the enemy," said the Rev. David Alston, who served on a Vietnam swiftboat commanded by Kerry a generation ago. He brought the delegates to their feet when he called the Massachusetts senator "my former skipper, my friend and our next commander in chief." The hall went nearly dark, the only light provided by thousands of small flashlights held aloft by delegates for a remembrance of the terror attacks of nearly three years ago. The haunting sounds of "Amazing Grace" floated across the arena from the violin of a 16-year-old musician.

In a convention scripted to the minute by the Kerry campaign, there were only muted references to the social issues that divide America. "John Kerry and John Edwards won't prevent you from getting the reproductive health care you need," said Gloria Feldt of Planned Parenthood.

Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin said Kerry will guarantee the right to family health benefits to all our families - including domestic partners.

Al Gore, who won the popular vote in 2000 but lost the White House, urged Democrats to "fully and completely" channel their anger of the bitter recount and send Kerry to the White House.

"When policies are clearly not working, we can change them. If our leaders make mistakes, we can hold them accountable - even if they never admit their mistakes," Gore said.

The former vice president drew repeated ovations from delegates packed into the FleetCenter - none louder than when he drew his wife Tipper into a kiss reminiscent of the one they shared at the convention four years ago in Los Angeles.

Gore's remarks drew praise from Raymond Zeller, chairman of Miami-Dade County Democratic Party. "They cannot forget what happened in the year 2000. And they dare not (let it) happen again," Zeller said.

Squandering Good Will

Former President Carter, elected to the White House in 1976, accused Bush of squandering the international goodwill that flowed to the United States in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United States from the very nations we need to join us in combatting terrorism," Carter said.

Clinton, who twice led his party to victory, declared himself "a foot soldier" in Kerry's army and urged Americans to rally behind the candidate's upbeat message.

"Democrats and Republicans have very different ideas on what choices we should make, rooted in fundamentally different views of how we should meet our common challenges at home and how we should play our role in the world," Clinton said in his prepared remarks.

"Democrats want to build an America of shared responsibilities and shared opportunities ... Republicans believe in an America run by the right people - their people," he said.

Kerry runs even to slightly ahead of Bush in the polls, and Republicans dispatched a team of surrogates to the Democrats' convention city to try to slow his campaign momentum. "The Extreme Makeover Convention," they called it, deriding the senator as a liberal trying to run from a record of more than two decades in Congress.

Bush, at his ranch in Texas, fell while bicycling on steep dirt paths during the day. He waved away his medics and continued his ride despite a small cut on his knee.

What passed for controversy at the Democrats' unified convention was stirred by Kerry's wife. She told a persistent reporter on Sunday to "shove it" when he urged her to expand on her call for more civility in politics.

"I think my wife speaks her mind appropriately," Kerry told reporters who asked about the exchange between Teresa Heinz Kerry and the editorial page editor of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Gore has assailed Bush sharply the last two years, accusing him of having "twisted values and atrocious policies."

In deference to the wishes of the Kerry campaign, his attacks from the convention podium were more tempered - couched as questions that seemed to suggest their own answers.

"Has the promise of compassionate conservatism been fulfilled? Or do those words now ring hollow," he asked, invoking Bush's campaign slogan from 2000.

"For that matter, are the economic policies really conservative at all? Did you expect, for example, the largest deficits in history ... And the loss of a million jobs."

He raised similar questions about the Bush administration's environmental policies and pursuit of diplomacy.

"Regardless of your opinion at the beginning of this war, isn't it now obvious that the way the war has been managed by the administration has gotten us into very serious trouble?" he asked.

And on the war on terrorism, he said, "wouldn't we be safer with a president who didn't insist on confusing al-Qaida with Iraq."

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., evoked the first energetic response of the night from the delegates. "Are you better off than you were four years ago?

"No," came back the shouted reply from Democrats eager to turn Bush out of office.

The delegates gathered amid unprecedented security for the first national political convention since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The subway station that runs near the FleetCenter was barricaded shut, and armed personnel stood guard along a seven-foot-tall metal security fence that ringed the convention complex.

At the behest of the Secret Service, the city revoked a permit for Operation Rescue and several other anti-abortion groups to demonstrate outside Kerry's Beacon Hill home during convention week.

The groups sued, to no avail. "I'm not going to second-guess the Secret Service's idea of how they feel they need to protect a presidential candidate," said Judge Nathaniel Gorton in denying the request.

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Editor's note: