Reply #33: Kerry has been on SFRC for 24 years [View All]

[karynnj]

He actually has spoken to many of the leaders, especially in the middle and near east - leaders, HRC has spoken to less. The fact is that Kerry has given thoughtful speeches on foreign policy since he was in college. Madeline Albright in a book written 2 or so years ago on her current ideas in foreign policy chose to include John Kerry's 1966 Yale speech. The excerpt was fascinating as it is very consistent with Kerry's 2008 views, though less mature. If you want to make foreign policy insight an issue - There are any number of Kerry speeches (and bills and resolutions) I can post that are far better than HRC's. Gates' terrorism memo is very close to Kerry's 2004 positions - which he actually wrote of in 2001. Baker/Hamilton (ISG) took more from Kerry's recommendations to them than anyone else. (HRC moved to Kerry's Iraq position 7 or so months after calling it cut and run. Then she spent the last year parotting his words about how a deadline would help.)

The big difference is that Kerry can also be a key ally in the Senate where he is very well positioned - while HRC doesn't have enough seniority and hasn't really led on any issue in the Senate. It may be that Kerry can accomplish more for the country and Obama in the Senate. Here are two major initiatives that Kerry just introduced in teh Senate within the last week.
1) A FDR style project to stimulate the economy by drastically improving rail transportation - http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/11/kerry_pushes_hi.html (This has gotten press over the last half year as he or other people interested have spoken to the media.
2) A Small business stimulus package - http://sbc.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=305070

Many Kerry provisions were passed in the Banking bill passed this summer - in addition to other bills for veterans and smal business.

In contrast - the most recent legislation HRC sponsored was a bill that declared a "Purple Hearts Day" and a resolution to go with it that honored purple heart recipients. That was from April.


From the Senate, Kerry, as head of SFRC with Obama as President, will have a voice in foreign policy, as of course, Joe Biden will. It may well be both of these people will be more influential in actually defining the policy than Clinton.

All I know is that there are far more stories out there of Kerry being able to broker compromises than there are of HRC doing so.