If Kerry is an environmentalist ...

Then why did he vote for NAFTA?
True, the concerns most voiced at the time were about its lack of labor rights safeguards, and lack of enforcement for the ones it did have.
But, environmental groups had similar comments about the lack of environmental provisions. And back in 1993, it didn't take a Ph.D. to know that an increase in lightly-regulated, heavily-polluting Mexican border plants would cause an increase in Mexican pollutants crossing the border into the U.S.
Even if that weren't a worry, Mexico would still have its own pollution increases to worry about. Does that mean that "third-world" countries don't deserve as much pollution protection as the U.S.?
Could you call this pollution credit trading in reverse?

Why don 't we just declare victory and get out of Iraq

That's the question that Gregg Easterbrook asked about Aug. 30 in The New Republic.
Now, Gregg's smart enough to know why Bush won't do that,
One, he's too stubborn. Two, he's bought into some sort of "divine mandate" idea that he believes about himself. Three, echoing Pat Buchanon's old comments about Israel and its amen corner in the U.S., the neoconservatives have sold him on this, and probably have tied it with imagery of the "whore of Babylon" from what maybe a fundamentalist streak (in the technical sense) in his Christian beliefs.
So, that's your answer, Greg.

1,000-plus now dead from the Iraq invasion

But, perusuers of this blog will know that's not good news for John Kerry, from this point of view. Kerry still has no plan to get us quickly out of Iraq. Kerry still has no consistent, concise, country-boy speaking level strategy for explaining, or explaining away, all of his past votes on Iraq. As a result, he still doesn't have this progressive vote.

Kerry gets a better linguistic handle on attacking Bush

In an earlier post, I wondered whether Kerry shouldn't use a label like "warmonger" to go after Bush with something hard and specific that is "negative" without sounding negative.
Then Kerry comes out with his "W stands for wrong" line. That's the type of talk that is needed throughout the campaign.
And where are Kerry "surrogates"? Yes, the congressional GOP is at it again with gay marriage, flag-burning bans and more, but "safe" representatives, senators and Democratic governors need to be speaking more if Kerry wants to stay on a focused message yet portray the Bushian image of being personally above the fray.

Kerry should emulate Humphrey, and now

In the last week of the 1968 presidential race, LBJ announced a halt on bombing of North Vietnam; at the same time, Humphrey came out more strongly against the current conduct of the war, and to a degree, even the war itself.
Humphrey significantly closed the gap in Nixon, but while it was not too little, it was in fact too late.
Kerry needs to take note.
Rather than blathering about intending to get most if not all troops out of Iraq within four years, he needs to talk about getting all U.S. troops out as soon as reasonably feasible.

How should Kerry get tougher to win?

Warmonger might be the best word, tho Bush would point to not attacking either Iran or North Korea.More importantly, "warmonger" tied with the threat of more troops in Iraq for more years, etc... might be the one way Kerry can energize minorities and poor whites.And, if Cohen is correct on Bush/Rove going for a "mandate of one," Kerry *has* to boost turnout among strong Democratic leaners and Democrats.I'm not sure how possible that is, though. Kerry struck me as below average to perhaps average among the Democrats' primary hopefuls in the degree of his appeal to minorities.As for people suggesting he use words like "liar" and "mass murderer," huh-uh. Definitely the wrong strategy.You want to go negative without sounding negative.