Kerry finds no position to stand on is no position to be in

By Myriam Marquez, KRT Campus

The more you know about John Kerry, the more you have to wonder: What’s at this man’s core?

And what, for heaven’s sake, were Democrats thinking to pick him as the best man to go up against President George W. Bush?

To say that Kerry is too liberal for most Americans misses a greater handicap in his campaign to beat Bush.

Kerry’s not only in denial about his liberal voting record, he nuances most every issue to his peril. He’s trying to win over as many undecided voters as possible, of course. But in the process, he comes off as a mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy politician.

At worst, he flip-flops, an accusation the Bush campaign has managed to make stick on the Massachusetts senator. The label surely has helped drag down Kerry’s popularity among voters.

Desperate to win Florida, which is critical to Democrats after the 2000 hanging-chad mess, Kerry has been playing pander-bear to just about every constituency here.

During a recent stop to secure South Florida’s Jewish community in Palm Beach County, Kerry noted his “100 percent record of sustaining the special relationship and friendship with Israel.”

Israel surely has every right to exist, but how would Kerry end the impasse with the Palestinians and help Israel secure lasting peace and give Palestinians the homeland they, too, deserve? It’s 100 percent unclear.

Kerry keeps pounding Bush that the Republican president has a “truth deficit,” and certainly there are grave questions about the reasons Bush gave to attack Iraq, yet Kerry the King of Nuance has his own deficits, starting with his inability to stake out clear positions on the stump.

A leader who doesn’t consider the nuances of issues will face dire policy problems (see Iraq), but there’s a point where nuance becomes a liability. Consider Kerry’s position on Cuba, whatever exactly that is.

Kerry now says he “never suggested lifting the embargo,” though he supports allowing travel to Cuba. Yet in a 2000 interview, Kerry said the embargo against Cuba was not in step with U.S. trade policy with other communist countries, like Vietnam, and that policy on Cuba boiled down to keeping Florida’s Cuban-American voters happy.

“ I think in the year 2000, the politics are very different from where they are in 2004,” Kerry told NBC’s Tim Russert recently. “But in the case of Cuba, there are a lot of different cross-currents to be sensitive to.”

Huh?

One thing’s certain: Kerry wants to steer clear of the cross-currents to make a dent in Bush’s strong Cuban-American support. By keeping it vague, he hopes to squirm around the Cuba issue.

Kerry nuances his way into political oblivion. Just last week, Gov. Jeb Bush tried to paint Kerry as an environmental threat to Florida. All because Kerry, at a Tampa stop, went into the nuances of deep-water drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, where oil rigs already exist. This served to confuse some people and muck up Kerry’s clear voting record against drilling off Florida’s coast.

I disagree with Bush on lots of issues, but it’s rarely a problem to pin him down on where he stands. Love him or not, you know what you get.

Kerry remains hard to figure out, and his vagueness won’t win him voters. It’s alienating people and giving Republicans plenty of political red meat to chomp on.

— Myriam Marquez is an editorial page columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. Responses may be sent to collegian@csufresno.edu