October 20, 2003 - I always marveled at how Bill Clinton sold the need for "change” to the American electorate. After all, we were coming out of the Reagan/Bush 80’s; the Cold War was over, our military had been properly funded and incentives for our business-based economy were put into place assuring a bright economic future for all. There really wasn’t a need for change. We were grifted by a slick political salesman who made us believe we needed the product of change not unlike a used-car salesman who sucks his customers into purchasing the extended warranty. Clinton pulled it off for eight years and still has the public bamboozled into believing he really accomplished something while in office.

Like Clinton, some politicians have the ability to "sell” themselves. Some don’t. Those who do could sell ice cubes to an Inuit. But those who don’t, and still try, come off as desperate, disingenuous and incapable. John Kerry is one such incapable politician.

Al Gore is incapable as well. Perhaps that’s where all his anger comes from. He tried to continue the "change’ game but it didn’t work. In the end, he was reduced to promulgating fear, a political tactic used by liberals when desperation sets in, especially in late October.

In a diatribe delivered at Georgetown University and sponsored by MoveOn.org, Gore pulled out his stock assault on the Bush Administration. "Where Bush remains out of touch, Kerry is a proud member of the reality-based community,” he said to a crowd that was half adoring faculty and half skeptical students. I suppose Kerry could be in touch with the reality-based community but I doubt it. I don’t know many millionaires who sit down each night to balance the old checkbook or go without the better cut of meat to save the extra dollars for their children’s college funds. Maybe the reality-based community Gore is talking about is the very real world where opportunistic men marry wealthy women, sometimes twice, in order to further their political careers. We will have to get some clarification on what the meaning of "reality-based” is for Mr. Gore. I’m sure we’ll find it right next to the definition of the word "is” in the Democratic handbook.

We’re now seeing the same worn-out rhetoric coming from the Kerry campaign. Anything President Bush does is wrong. I’m surprised Kerry doesn’t insist that the president doesn’t breathe right, that his breathing has alienated our "allies” and that he has a plan to do a better job of breathing if elected to the White House. It’s quite clear to anyone who chooses to be aware that Kerry will say anything and panders to anyone in order to win the election. Pathetically, it isn’t about what’s good for our country, instead it’s about what’s good for Mr. Kerry.

Evident beyond Kerry’s narcissism is the desperation now emanating from his campaign. Slipping in the polls, Kerry has stopped reaching for the brass ring of "change” that Bill Clinton possessed and has fallen back on the age-old liberal tactic of mongering fear to the American electorate.

In Florida Kerry tried to frighten senior citizens into believing that President Bush, if re-elected, would privatize Social Security, reducing their monthly stipends by up to $700. Of course this is blatantly untrue. President Bush has proposed allowing younger workers to secure their own futures by voluntarily investing in tax-free safe retirement accounts, doing so without changing benefits for those now in or near retirement. But to listen to Kerry our senior citizens will be eating dog food if President Bush is re-elected.

The most egregious of Kerry’s lies this election cycle is the insistence that President Bush has a plan to reinstate the draft. While Kerry’s deception sounds as though he knows what he is talking about it simply isn’t the truth. President Bush has directly stated there would be no reinstatement of the draft. Besides, only Congress has that authority.

Then there is the despicable accusation that Republicans are doing all they can to keep the American-African community from voting. America Coming Together – a George Soros/Harold Ickes group – has even distributed fliers depicting black voters being doused with fire-hoses circa 1960’s Alabama. All this rhetoric and not one instance of voter intimidation has ever been found to be true, not in 2000 and not now.

We bought the used car of "change” from Bill Clinton and paid dearly for it in the quality of our military, our intelligence communities and entitlements, among other things. As John Kerry tries to achieve the same "change” through the promotion of fear and divisiveness we need to ask ourselves, do we need the extended warranty on this used car of "change?” Honestly, I don’t think we can afford it.