Word: kerrey
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Fast-forward to the 1992 campaign and suddenly almost the entire field of challengers -- from Pat Buchanan on the Republican right to Senator Tom Harkin on the Democratic left -- is singing out of the old Connally hymnbook. An artfully contrived TV spot depicts Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey guarding a hockey net while warning the Japanese that "if we can't sell in their market, they can't sell in ours." Harkin vows to send a similarly shrill message to Tokyo: "We're going to reduce our trade deficit with you, Japan, down to zero in five years. Two ways...
...Democrats appear ambivalent in their attitudes toward the world's other economic superpower. Since three of the five Democrats have been state Governors (Clinton, Kerrey of Nebraska and Jerry Brown of California), they tend to welcome Japanese investment in America (jobs) even as they deplore Japanese trading practices (lost jobs). No Democratic candidate would qualify as a Japan expert, but all, aside from Tsongas, have visited the country. In fact Harkin lived in Japan for 18 months as a naval aviator during the 1960s, and Brown made pilgrimages both as Governor and, more recently, as an acolyte...
Bush's chances are boosted even more by Democratic weakness. Only when faced with the alternative of "an unnamed Democrat" do many voters opt to abandon Bush. Lightweights such as Gov. Bill Clinton, Sen. Bob Kerrey and Tsongas have failed to whet the appetite of the electorate...
...Cecile, a sharp middle-aged woman with an attack dog at her side, stayed behind her screen door as she expressed her disappointment with the Democratic field. While Clinton was too much a shifty politician, Kerrey was too boring, Tsongas too technocratic, and Harkin too short on details. She wanted the candidates to elucidate their messages with more specifics...
Collective judgments based on gossip are always crude, often stupid, and sometimes stir up a lynch mob. Anyway, the standards vary absurdly. Why is it all right for Bob Kerrey to divorce his wife and invite an actress, Debra Winger, to move into the Nebraska Governor's mansion for a time (the Nebraskans loved that touch of glamour) and wrong for Bill Clinton to stay married to his wife and work through their troubles...