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Kerry’s roots
Posted at: Friday, March 5, 2004, 01:38 AM
That John Kerry, a Catholic, has Jewish roots on his father’s side has been widely known for a year. New on Thursday was confirmation by archivists at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial that two of his relatives — his grandmother’s brother and sister — were victims of Nazi genocide.
Archivists said Otto Loewe died in the Theresienstadt ghetto in what was then Czechoslovakia, and Jenny Loewe vanished in the Treblinka death camp in Poland.
Kerry’s paternal grandfather emigrated to the United States from what is now the Czech Republic, changing his name to Kerry from Kohn. His grandmother, whose maiden name was Ida Loewe, also emigrated and converted from Judaism to Catholicism.
— Staff writer Matthew C. Quinn and wire services.
Ambassador Cleland?
Posted at: Friday, March 5, 2004, 01:36 AM
Everybody’s new favorite political pastime, it seems, is speculating about whom John Kerry will choose for his running mate. But Chuck Todd, editor of the National Journal’s Hotline Web site, has taken it a step further, envisioning a Kerry Cabinet. For one of Kerry’s stalwart friends, former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, Todd proposes the U.N. ambassadorship — a post that was occupied by another Georgian, Andrew Young, during President Jimmy Carter’s administration, when Cleland was head of the Veterans Administration.
“Cleland’s done the veterans gig before, and he didn’t necessarily make a lot of friends when he did it,” Todd wrote. “But he deserves something good from Kerry because he’s such a campaign workhorse.”
— Staff writer Matthew C. Quinn and wire services.
Lord of the jobs
Posted at: Tuesday, March 2, 2004, 10:15 AM
Kerry, who stayed up late Sunday night watching the 11-Oscar sweep by “Lord of the Rings,” praised the movie’s director for creating thousands of jobs while filming J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy.
“Peter Jackson said that he used 25,000 extras in ‘Lord of the Rings,’” Kerry said at Ohio State on Monday, referring to the director’s comments during his Oscar acceptance speech. ‘‘Did you know that? He has created 25,000 more jobs than George Bush has, ladies and gentleman. We ought to give him more than an Oscar.”
Only thing is, most of those jobs were in Jackson’s native New Zealand where filming took place.
The director is also building a new movie production center in the capital of Wellington, which is sure to create many more jobs … for Kiwis.
— The Associated Press
Clark tours Georgia
Posted at: Thursday, February 26, 2004, 03:44 AM
John Kerry, who’s only spent roughly half as much time as John Edwards campaigning in Georgia, countered Wednesday by sending in the Army in the form of retired Gen. Wesley Clark.
Clark, who dropped out of the race a few weeks ago and endorsed Kerry, toured through Macon, Albany and Columbus, emphasizing that Kerry is a Vietnam veteran and a lawmaker with foreign policy experience.
“As much as I like John Edwards, John Edwards doesn’t have that experience,” Clark said.
Clark also said Kerry’s victories in the Tennessee and Virginia primaries prove he can compete for votes in the South.
“You can’t help where you’re born. It’s what you make of your life and what you give to others that matters,” Clark said.
Kerry further added to his military coterie by garnering the endorsement Wednesday of former Ohio Sen. John Glenn, a Navy veteran and astronaut.
—- AJC staff reports
Big guns
Posted at: Thursday, February 26, 2004, 03:43 AM
The war of words between John Kerry and President Bush continued Wednesday as Ed Gillespie, Republican national chairman, once again attacked Kerry as having voted against important defense bills in the Senate.
The response from the Kerry camp was double-barreled, coming from former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland and Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington.
“It’s the height of irony for people like Ed Gillespie, who never served in the American military, and does not understand war, to criticize the record of Senator Kerry, who has been wounded in battle and tested in combat,” Cleland said in a conference call with reporters.
Speaking on the same conference call, Dicks, a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, the Select Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism, said Kerry had voted for 16 of the 19 defense appropriations bills which had come before him, and for $1.1 trillion in defense spending since Bush took office.
“That’s a lot of defense,” Dicks said.
— Staff reports
Rock ‘n’ roll campaign buses
Posted at: Wednesday, February 25, 2004, 03:13 AM
John Kerry’s presidential campaign took top Bush administration officials to task Monday for touring the country last week “in a luxury cruiser designed for rock stars, touting the president’s economic agenda.”
The fund-raising letter from Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill referred to the bus used by Treasury Secretary John Snow, Commerce Secretary Don Evans and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to tour the Pacific Northwest. Their ride was on a cruiser with leather benches, bunk beds and mirrors on the ceiling, once used by the rock bands Styx and Bon Jovi.
But Kerry’s transportation has its own rock ‘n’ roll past. The Massachusetts senator and his entourage have spent the last week flying on an airplane previously used by the Rolling Stones, complete with a stocked bar in the middle that’s routinely enjoyed by reporters and campaign staff.
— Wire services
Kerry, Edwards on the air
Posted at: Tuesday, February 24, 2004, 12:43 AM
John Kerry and John Edwards are taking their Georgia presidential primary campaigns to the airwaves.
Edwards is already running a pair of TV ads across the state. One promotes his “two Americas” campaign theme; the other was taped outside the North Carolina senator’s modest boyhood home in Seneca, S.C.
The Kerry campaign said ads to start airing today feature Del Sandusky, one of Kerry’s crewmates from the Vietnam War. He calls the Massachusetts senator a “good American.”
— AJC staff
Teresa Heinz Kerry at Emory
Posted at: Thursday, February 19, 2004, 03:13 PM
John Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, chatted with Emory students Thursday after giving a short speech at the school. One bold student told Kerry that his parents wanted to know why she didn’t give her own money to the charities she runs.
“You tell your parents I have given $100 million of my own money,” she said, still smiling.
Paige Rohe, a 22-year-old Emory senior, said she was impressed with Heinz Kerry’s poise.
“She’s soft-spoken but super intelligent,” Rohe said. “She’s not at all how you picture a first lady. She’s got her own mind, her own issues.”
— Andrea Jones
Lewis endorsing Kerry
Posted at: Thursday, February 19, 2004, 01:00 PM
Rep. John Lewis endorsed Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign Thursday afternoon. “It’s not just another political endorsement. I believe in John Kerry,” Lewis said.
The announcement was made during a joint appearance with Teresa Heinz Kerry, the senator’s wife, at Paschal’s restaurant on Northside Drive.
The endorsement is a plum for Kerry in advance of Georgia’s March 2 presidential primary. African-American voters will make up a significant part of the electiorate. Lewis, one of the state’s top African-Amerian leaders, was a veteran of the civil rights movement and one-time lieutenant to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
— Matt Quinn
Kerry rock rarity
Posted at: Wednesday, February 18, 2004, 02:36 AM
Sold for $2,551. That was the winning eBay bid for a rare copy of an album produced by Kerry’s high school rock ‘n’ roll band, the Electras (album cover at right). Kerry played electric bass for the prep school band at New Hampshire’s elite St. Paul’s School in 1961. Only 500 copies of the album were made.
Talkin bout my candidacy…
Posted at: Tuesday, February 17, 2004, 12:36 AM
John Kerry finally out-talked Howard Dean. The National Journal toted up the amount of time each candidate has talked in the 14 debates among the Democratic White House hopefuls. After Sunday night’s debate in Wisconsin, the results were:
Kerry 2 hour 38 min 20 sec
Dean 2 hours 32 min 48 sec
Campaign cash
Posted at: Monday, February 16, 2004, 02:40 AM
Sen. John Kerry has collected at least $7 million since Jan. 1, according to his campaign. President Bush has taken in more than $13 million in the same period. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean weighs in with at least $5 million and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards with more than $3 million.
McCain to the rescue . . .
Posted at: Saturday, February 14, 2004, 02:33 AM
Sen. John McCain on Friday came to the defense of a fellow Vietnam War veteran, Sen. John Kerry, by attacking the credibility of a North Carolina veteran who has dedicated himself to defeating Kerry in his campaign for president.
McCain (R-Ariz.) called the man, Ted Sampley, “one of the most despicable people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter.”
Sampley, a businessman from Kinston, N.C., has gained some attention in recent days for his Web site, www.vietnamveteransagainst
johnkerry.com, which features pictures that include one showing Kerry at a rally, sitting several rows behind Jane Fonda.
In response to McCain’s remarks about him, Sampley said in a telephone interview: “It’s not the first time he said that. That’s his opinion. It’s unbecoming of a senator to say things like that, but I’m fair game just like he is.”
Kerry gets ready for Georgia
Posted at: Friday, February 13, 2004, 01:19 AM
Sen. John Kerry’s campaign was setting up shop Thursday in Midtown in advance of Georgia’s presidential primary in three weeks.
For now, the campaign is operating out of the 1100 Spring St. offices of the Oblander Group, a Democratic political fund-raising firm that has been working for the Massachusetts Democrat.
But come next week, the campaign will be up and running in its own digs with a paid staff of five. Kerry’s people hope it will be in the same building, which has in the past rented space to campaigns for former Sen. Max Cleland and former Gov. Roy Barnes and now houses state Democratic Party headquarters.
Steve Lindsey, who ran Kerry’s Tennessee primary campaign, is flying in to take charge as state director in time for Saturday’s meeting of the campaign’s steering committee. The menu: chili dogs from the nearby Varsity. “We’re going to show these people how to live,” said Cleland, a Kerry friend and supporter.
First responders
Posted at: Tuesday, February 10, 2004, 01:02 AM
John Kerry is now racking up labor endorsements. But for a long time the lone union backing him was the International Association of Fire Fighters. Why would the group, considered one of the more conservative unions in the AFL-CIO, pick a guy who’s often been labeled a northeastern liberal? Back in September, the president of the 240,000-member union said the group likes Kerry’s record as a decorated Vietnam War veteran, his political, legal and legislative experience, his sense of humor and his personal interests in athletics and Harley-Davidson motorcycles (above).
