  I don’t have tv, so I wasn’t able to watch John Kerry give his acceptance speech to be the Democrat’s presidential candidate. Fortunately, I was able to read it urlLink on the net , and I heard large portions on the radio. First, I have to admit this is the best delivery I’ve ever heard Kerry give. He picked up the pace, and succeeded in not lulling me to sleep.
On the other hand, I thought his speech was deceptive at times and his words rarely matched his core values we can see through his voting record as a Senator. First, I am perplexed by his strong rhetoric (which he has continued to use in speeches after this one) in the phrase: " I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war . " This is puzzling because Kerry (and John Edwards) strongly supported the necessity of the Iraq war based on the same evidence President Bush had. Moreover, he voted to give the President the authority to conduct the war, although he voted against giving the President the funding for the war. This record of his positions on the war makes me think Kerry is driven by popular opinions, not core ideologies.
Who knows where he’ll stand on the war next week. Kerry also blasted the state of the economy. Yet, the economy is doing great ! Unemployment is below 5%, which is lower than it ever was during the 1990’s. Good high paying jobs are being created, and the average American worker has received a big cut in taxes. Let’s not forget that President Bush has marshaled this powerful economy after the devastating September 11 attacks and two wars. All indicators show the economy continues to improve. Kerry has voted on numerous occasions to raise taxes, especially on gasoline, and during the primaries, Kerry said several times his first action as President would be to repeal the Bush tax cuts, which is a nice way of saying he will raise taxes.
These strategies will immediately cripple lower and middle class people, and will have stifling effects on the whole economy in long run. Another interesting turn Kerry took in his speech was to cast himself as a strong supporter of the military and intelligence. Most of this was backed up by his rhetoric on being a soldier. But his voting record as a Senator says something completely different. He has voted against implementing every modern piece of military hardware currently used by our soldiers (examples: F-16, F-15, B1-B, B2-A, Apache Helicopter, Patriot Missile, etc.). In 1996, Kerry introduced a bill that would cut defense by $6.5 billion dollars, which thankfully was not passed. Despite the rhetoric, I have no reason to believe Kerry is the strong military man he promises to be.
Kerry’s speech either directly stated or subtly implied that he would send more troops to Iraq, hire more police in the US, provide healthcare for everyone, and not raise taxes on the lower and middle classes. In fact, he actually said he would lower taxes on the middle class. How is he going to accomplish this fiscal feat? Not by cutting any government programs, he said that he wouldn’t do that. The only adjustment seems to be to raise taxes on the "rich" Americans, which are those who make $200k a year.
Granted, that’s more than I make, but I would hardly call that rich. In many places that have a high cost of living, that income would be dead center on the middle class. Furthermore, I find it difficult to believe that this will provide enough funding to supply all the promises he gave. Either he is lying or he has a bad policy here. My blog has already become rather long, so I won’t make it much longer. I’m keeping my ears open to what Kerry and Edwards are promising, but so far I’m not impressed. 
