No, choose Gephardt, not Edwards

[NewJerseyDem]

http://www.thehill.com/news/062204/gephardt.aspx

Longtime loyalists of Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) are whipping up signatures on their own letter to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), urging the presumptive Democratic nominee to choose the former minority leader as his vice-presidential candidate.

Drafted in response to a secretive letter by 22 supporters of Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), the Gephardt partisans said they wanted to show the Kerry campaign of Gephardt’s deep support among a cross-section of his House colleagues.

Late last week, Reps. Gene Green (D-Texas) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) wrote separate letters to the Kerry campaign and then took them to the floor to gather signatures in support of their onetime leader.

[Scoopie]

1. This is getting kind of pitiful

Pick me!
No, pick me!
I have these letters!
So, I have these letters!

Geesch.

Kerry, pick Clark or Biden or Graham or Cleland, please. Heck, I'd even go with Richardson.

[JI7]

2. this is nice,but kerry wont be making decisions based on this

[cosmokramer]

3. It is pitiful that people are trying to PUSH Kerry...

...and I believe HARMFUL for the candidate they claim to represent--Edwards and Gephardt.

Hiring PR firms, paying for polling, getting congressional signatures--SAD, SAD, SAD.

[Scoopie]

6. Remember high school elections?

Where you used to give out candy and hall passes and get "endorsements" from the "cool" kids?
This reminds me of that!

:D

[cosmokramer]

7. This is WORSE than High School elections...

...it is self-righteous shamefulness (Edwards much more so than Gep).

I don't know what the Public Relations firm is thinking in doing the kind of promoting (specifically of Edwards) they are doing, but if I were Kerry, I say "fuck you" to someone who is trying to outshine me at every corner.

[Padraig18]

11. What PR firm is pushing Edwards? n/t

[cosmokramer]

15. The one organized by his attorney friends.

[Padraig18]

16. Does it have a name? n/t

[cosmokramer]

17. Came from ABC "The Note", and I don't recall...

...if a name of the 'firm' was listed, but the article specifically stated that JE's attorney friends had hired/put togther a PR firm to advance JE as VP...and I know someone from Porter Novelli (a PR firm) was also involved in this concept.

[Nicholas_J]

13. More of an indication

that Edwards is being seen as unlikely to be given the tap on the shoulder.. and his supporters are getting worried.Gephardt has a lot more support in Congres however, and has had it from the start. If you remember, his presidential campaign started with Nancy Pelosi and a quarter of the democratic representatives in the House endorsing Gephardt on a single day.
Pelosi and the group of representatives who supported Gephardt and are still supporting him appropriately responded to letters from the Senators supporting Edwards.

[NewJerseyDem]

14. He doesn't have that much support in congress

First of all, Pelosi has said that she won't endorse anyone for the VP nomination and that the choice is up to Kerry.

Also, a lot of those congressmen endorsed Gephardt but I don't think it was very enthusiastic. There are a lot of congressmen that don't like Gephardt because they thought that he did a bad job as leader. And those that did support him may have felt like that was what they were supposed to do considering their long relationship and Gephardt's 13 years as leader. Plus, he really didn't get that many endorsements for someone who was the democratic leader for so long.

[cosmokramer]

18. How the hell would you know whether or not it was enthusiastic?

Duh!

:dunce:

[jpgray]

4. Gephardt is not my favorite guy

He gets kudos for his labor stances, but his Rose Garden performance isn't something I'd like to have on the ticket.

[Doosh]

5. could be a final hour push by the Gephardt folks

if the decision hasn't been already made. I really like Gep too.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[chimpymustgo]

9. EXCUSE ME??? YOUR POST IS SO RACIST!!!! You should be ashamed.

"Blacks have no choice except vote for Kerry since
Kerry offers much better welfare package than Bush.
So VP does not make any difference with the exception
of Sharpton or Braun."

Good God. What effing GARBAGE.

And the rest of your post is just wrong.

[SixShooter]

10. Edwards!

I love Gep...but his main thing is labor, and he couldnt even get most of the labor in the primary...most of them went to Dean....He got shellacked in his own backyard...


Kerry-Edwards 2004 sounds good to me!

[Nicholas_J]

12. Actually Dean did not get the support of labor members

Deabn only picked up two unions, and this was not accompished by asking the members of the two white collar unions that supported Dean, but by a political move by the leadership of one white collar union,

But the labor leadership, which chose to not ask it members who they wanted to endorse. Union rules on political endorsement do not require this, but if you look at the results of the vote of union families and union membership in Iowa, Gephardt and Kerry together took about 60 percent of the union vote while Dean took 18 percent. Gephardt didnt get shellacked by union members, but by the head of SEIU, who decided to go his own way, which resulted in AFSME having to go along. These were the only two unions that initially endorsed Dean, while the Gephardt picked up the largest total number of unions.

When it came down to voting, in Iowa, Gephardt took 29 percent of the union vote, Kerry took 25 percent, Edwards took something like 19 percent and Dean came in with 18 percent. Hardly a shellacking, and a clear indication that Union membership wasnt going to support a candidate that they didnt give the green light to.

[JI7]

19. no Kerry took the most with 29%

edwards and gephardt both got 22% and dean got 19.

check link below and scroll down to question on unions.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/primaries/pages/epolls/IA/index.html