In Chicago today, Kerry stepped up his criticism of Bush supporters’ tactics. Told by a worker to “tell it like it is,” Kerry said, “We are going to keep pounding, let me tell you, just beginning to fight here. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I’ve seen. It’s scary.”
Spokesman David Wade later told reporters traveling with Kerry to Washington that the candidate was referring to “the Republican attack machine” that ran ads against Arizona Senator John McCain during the 2000 Republican primary and against Georgia Democrat Max Cleland, who lost his Senate re-election race in 2002.
My comment: The legend of Max Cleland, like that of South Carolina 2000, are for today’s Democrats what Willie Horton was for an earlier breed: examples of horrible Republican campaign tactics that no amount of argument will convince them to relinquish.