Kerry faces battle for antiwar bloc’s vote

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/kerry/articles/2004/04/23/kerry_faces_battle_for_antiwar_blocs_vote/

Senator John F. Kerry may have won the contest for
the Democratic presidential nomination, but he still
faces a fight for the hearts and minds of the
party\’s antiwar wing.

With violence surging in Iraq, voters who want a quick
end to the US-led occupation are shaping up as a
potentially critical constituency, and Independent
presidential candidate Ralph Nader is making a direct
pitch for their support in November.

Meanwhile, Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, a
vocal war critic, continues to campaign in the hope of
exerting influence at the Democratic convention in July.

Leaders of progressive groups who are backing Kerry
despite reservations about his Iraq stands say they
doubt Nader will peel away significant support from
Kerry in the fall election. They say their members know
that the stakes are too high, that the race against
President Bush will be close, and that votes for Nader
even could be political suicide.

Still, polls indicated Nader is in mid-range single
digits nationally. In 2000, when he received less than 3
percent of the total vote, the margin between Bush and
Democrat Al Gore was less than half of 1 percent in five
states — Florida, New Mexico, Iowa, Oregon, and
Wisconsin.

\"A few percent in certain states, and he could turn the
whole thing,\" said Don Kusler, spokesman for Americans
for Democratic Action, a liberal advocacy group with
65,000 members. \"He has the potential to have an
enormous impact. It really depends on where the damage
is done.\"

Nader is unfazed by Democratic critics who say that he
was a spoiler four years ago when he ran under the Green
Party banner and that he could be one in the election
this year.

On Iraq, Nader told the Globe that Kerry\’s position is
\"the exact position needed not to get any votes on the
issue.\" He added: \"It\’s fuzzed. It\’s good he\’s saying we
should go to the United Nations for authority . . . but
by asking for more troops, he\’s basically validating
Bush\’s occupation.\"

Kerry, who voted in 2002 for the resolution authorizing
Bush to use force, has called on the administration to
find more allies to provide military help in Iraq and
\"make the United Nations a full partner responsible for
developing Iraq\’s transition to a new constitution and
government.\" But Kerry has said he would support sending
more troops to Iraq if military commanders say they are
needed.

Nader, who has yet to qualify for the ballot in any
state, wants a deadline set for US troop withdrawal and
replacements from a UN peacekeeping force, followed by
internationally supervised elections in Iraq. He also
has said Congress should begin an impeachment inquiry of
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Kerry\’s campaign declined to respond to Nader\’s specific
criticism, but campaign spokeswoman Kathy Roeder said,
\"If people want to beat George Bush in November, they
should vote for John Kerry.\"

That sentiment is expressed by leaders of several
liberal advocacy groups, who support Kerry despite the
unease of many about his support for the Iraq
resolution, his shifting stands during the course of the
campaign, and his current positions on Iraq, which some
critics privately say differ only by degree from the
administration\’s.

Most said they think their members will support Kerry
rather than make a statement on the war by voting for
Nader.

\"What we see in our membership is a unanimity behind
Kerry,\" said Eli Pariser, executive director of the
political action committee of MoveOn, which vigorously
opposed the invasion of Iraq. \"When we sent out a
message to raise money for Kerry, we got more flak from
a handful of people who are supporters of Kucinich. I
haven\’t received a single piece of mail from a Nader
supporter yet.\"

Ellen R. Malcolm, president of two major activist
groups, said anti-Bush sentiment is so high among
liberals that she thinks it will limit Nader\’s appeal to
war opponents. \"There are some people who agree with the
Nader approach,\" said Malcolm, head of Emily\’s List,
which champions Democratic female candidates and women\’s
issues, and America Coming Together, which is organizing
voters in 17 battleground states. \"But most of the
people I talk to are so upset with Bush on Iraq and
other issues that they\’ll vote for Kerry.\"

Although Kerry has locked up more than enough convention
delegates to win the Democratic nomination, Kucinich
continues to campaign as an opponent of the war and
other Bush policies. Kucinich, who has secured about 30
convention delegates out of 4,322, is campaigning
extensively in Oregon, which holds its presidential
primary May 18. In the next few days, Kucinich is
scheduled to campaign in Pennsylvania, which has its
primary next Tuesday.

Attempts to reach Kucinich were unsuccessful. But
according to The Columbian, a newspaper in Vancouver,
Wash., Kucinich said at a recent campaign appearance,
\"I\’ve stayed in this race to give people in states
across the country the option to keep the contest of
ideas alive.\" Kucinich, who advocates replacing US
troops with UN peacekeepers, said: \"We need to insist
our party stand for something. That it not just be
willing to provide a Democratic version of the war as
opposed to the Republican version of the war.\"

For most of the campaign for the Democratic nomination,
former Vermont governor Howard Dean was a favorite of
antiwar activists. Dean, who dropped out of the race two
months ago, has endorsed Kerry. On Iraq, \"John Kerry\’s
position and mine are the same at this point,\" Dean told
the Globe. \"He wants to get the UN involved, which is
critical.\" Dean, who has established Democracy for
America, a grass-roots organization to support
progressive candidates, said a vote for Nader will be
tantamount to a vote for Bush.

Mark Green, an original Nader Raider consumer and public
interest activist, said \"the minor differences between
the Democratic nominee and me on Iraq are microscopic
compared to the chasm between me and Bush.\" He contends
\"99 percent of Democratic progressives\" hold the same
view and will not back Nader. Green, president of the
New Democracy Project, a public policy institute, and
coauthor of a recent book critical of Bush, is
cochairman of Kerry\’s campaign in New York.

Robert L. Borosage, codirector of Campaign for America\’s
Future, said that among antiwar activists there is \"a
lot of murmuring\" about Kerry\’s posture on Iraq. But
Borosage, who disagrees with Kerry on the issue of
sending more troops to Iraq, predicted the activists
ultimately will support the Democrat. \"People see very
clearly this time what the stakes are in this election,\"
he said. \"Bush unifies progressives with Kerry the way
[former president] Clinton unified conservatives.\"

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