We all know that John Kerry has picked John Edwards as his running mate. I am assuming that he made the choice out of policy, politics, and popularity.

Kerry has not focused on foreign policy. His comments on that have been pretty much limited (lately) to "rejoining the community of nations".

With the pick of Edwards (who has next to no foreign policy experience) the focus seems to be clearly on domestic issues.

With John Edwards, John Kerry has added clarity to the presidential election.



With Kerry's choice of John Edwards as his Vice Presidential candidate, what does this indicate about Kerry's emphasis on issues? Will this election turn into a domestic versus foreign policy referendum?

The Kerry/Edwards ticket has plenty of foreign relations experience. John Kerry has 18 years of experience as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Picking a VeeP that had ample experience in foreign relations, would have been redundant and a bad choice.

Yes, the Democrats now have an experienced expert on Foreign policy in Kerry, and an individual that is very experienced in dealing with domestic issues in the trial lawyer in Edwards.

Remember, Bush's experience in Foreign affairs are mostly viewed as failures by the world community. As far as Foreign Policy goes, the lead has to go to the Democrats.

To answer the question, I think we now see is a balanced attack on the issues being drummed up by the Dems, and NO, Foreign policy, or the lack there of, will be a major issue.

With Kerry's choice of John Edwards as his Vice Presidential candidate, what does this indicate about Kerry's emphasis on issues? Will this election turn into a domestic versus foreign policy referendum?

Very little, and probably not. The article cited was written with the clear intent of accusing Kerry for being unconcerned with terrorism- a kind of accusation silly on it's very face. I doubt there's many people in Washington D.C. who don't think about terrorist attacks- actually being a target, and not a bystander, does that to you. To cover up the stupidity of the premise, Goldberg pretends to be analyzing why Kerry chose his veep choice- without touching on the obvious waypoints of balance (regional and focus area), Edwards's photogenic charisma, or his #2 performance in the primaries.

Nor does it mention Bush's 2000 level of foreign policy experience, easily exceeded by the also unmentioned seat Edwards has on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The reason Kerry's statements on foreign policy are few and far between are because only one foreign policy issue interests the public right now, and Kerry has repeatedly spoken his mind on Iraq at different points in the process (he's also recently spoken about the need to enlarge the military and stop the "back-door draft"). Repeating himself to voters isn't going to help his reputation as "the one with gravitas, but boring". Kerry, by the way, is on the Foreign Relations Committee, and I'm sure he'll be happy to speak at length- likely extreme, sonorous length- about his views when the public's interested in something other than previous statements on Iraq.

With Kerry's choice of John Edwards as his Vice Presidential candidate, what does this indicate about Kerry's emphasis on issues? Will this election turn into a domestic versus foreign policy referendum?
Bit of a hasty generalization I think. There is no question Kerry/Edwards will make Bush's foreign policy an issue, along with his environmental, education, economic and tax policies.

I think the article misses the mark entirely and assumes way too much about the pick of Edwards. According to http://slate.msn.com/id/2086450/, Edwards is admittedly more Hawkish than Kerry though that may temper a bit as Veep.

Goldberg was right about one thing, the debates should be good.

And who would you rather have suffer inexperience in foreign policy, your presidential candidate or vice? Bush's only experience in foreign policy as governor and prior was likely in Oil and we know where that landed us.

Doc

I very much disagree with that statement Amlord, in fact I have argued that point extensively in this thread.

To suggest Kerry does not care about foreign policy completely ignores reality and is just a regurgitation of the GOP party line. In fact Kerry has talked about little else but foreign policy in the last few months.


And again here, you are parroting the GOP party line -- attack Edwards based on lack of experience. Having no foreign policy experience is completely irrelevant, did George W. Bush have any foreign policy experience as governor of Texas? I didn't think so.

Edited to add: Dick Cheny also had no foreign policy experience before he became vice president, in fact he wasn't even a politician, he was a business executive.

So, I'm not so sure that it is important for Edwards to have foreign policy experience, besides to suggest he isn't qualified because he doesn't have experience is the classic pot calling the kettle black logic.

<removed a one-liner that wasn't productive, apologies>

With Kerry's choice of John Edwards as his Vice Presidential candidate, what does this indicate about Kerry's emphasis on issues? Will this election turn into a domestic versus foreign policy referendum?

If this compound question is implying that it’s either/or, I don’t believe so. I don't believe it indicates anything other than John Kerry's realizing he has the best chance at winning the Presidency with Edwards on the ticket.

More importantly, let’s remember Bush’s lack of experience in foreign policy when he ran for president, and Gore’s making that inexperience a key campaign strategy (didn’t work, obviously)! The right focuses so much on Edwards’ “lack of experience”, have they forgotten that their man had one 4-year term as governor as his experience? I don’t think “My daddy was president” is a sufficient substitute.



Is inexperience only a major issue when it’s a Democrat who's having the finger pointed at him? Who is running for VICE President, I might add, not the top job (more’s the pity).

I could not resist adding this-has nothing to do with the topic, but it was included in the Texas newspaper article in 1999:



edited to put the right #@!! quote in...

Kerry and Edwards focused on family values in their first public appearance together (yesterday) in my hometown, Cleveland.

Kerry, Edwards stress values



I listened to Kerry and Edwards speak (it was on the radio). They focused on family values, on "American values". Nothing much about the economy. Very, very little about terrorism or anything outside of the borders.

They mentioned no plan to deal with threats to this country. "George Bush is doing it wrong" is not a plan, I'm sorry to say.

I understand that Kerry theoretically has a plan on foreign policy. The fact that he does not emphasize it during rallies (especially the first one after adding Edwards) says something to me. They emphasized the family. That's great. However, it is not the most important thing on the agenda (at least to me).

Kerry's statement just before introducing Edwards:



I guess I can feel better once John and John restore my American values (didn't realize I lost them...). Their future stump speeches had better contain some foreign policy content. Throw us a bone, at least.

Kerry's choice of Edwards might indicate (as others have indicated) that Kerry is the foreign policy guy and Edwards adds nothing to that dimension of the ticket.

So... by your logic every single speech needs to lay out the policy on the same issues and it has to inlcude everything right?

I find that kind of ridiculous, speeches have a specific purpose and generally only cover one subject. If we were to hold Bush to the same standard you are proposing then if I had only this speech given by Bush yesterday, what would I think his position on domestic issues, foreign policy, anything was? I wouldn't know how he stood on anything, because that wasn't the purpose of the speech.

The speech Kerry and Edwards gave was clearly a "warm the heartland" speech, probably to combat the so-called "negative" image the Democrats have. You can't talk about family and going to blow up terrorists in the same speech.

Kerry might talk about Foreign policy at the next speech he gives or he might not, he is not required to dwell on that in every single speech he gives.

I think the bone that you are looking for in terms of foreign policy, when it comes to Iraq is what the Bush administration is doing now.

Kerry called for a new UN resolution, NATO security forces and more US troops in April of this year.



Seems that Kerry's foreign policy agenda is SO good, that Bush adopted it. Enough said for me, now let's talk about other issues, such as family values.

Maybe Kerry/Edwards are focusing on domestic issues because they've been ignored for so long? Just a thought.

With all the focus on Iraq, terror, Iraq, terror, Iraq, Iraq Iraq, I find it rather refreshing that someone is actually turning some attention on us everyday Americans for a change. Kerry's outlined his foreign policy strategy, and I think it's wise to just wait and let the Bush administration implode upon itself.

That is, until Bush pulls Osama out of his hat, oh, say Halloween.....

That is a good point Daffy, the way that Bush paints things even farmers working out in the fields in the midwest should be on the lookout for terrorists. You never know, they might want to hold the Wal Mart hostage

To turn it around, does Bush not care about what is going on at home?

With Kerry's choice of John Edwards as his Vice Presidential candidate, what does this indicate about Kerry's emphasis on issues? Will this election turn into a domestic versus foreign policy referendum?

I think it indicates that he wanted to balance his foreign policy experience with someone who has a considerable amount of domestic policy experience. This will only turn into a domestic vs. foreign policy election if the Dems let it happen. Much as Dubya chooses to view the world in black and white ("with us or with the terrorists"), I assume that he will choose to frame the issues of the election in an "us vs. them" way as well.



I beg to differ here. Mr. Kerry has shown that his views on foreign policy are much broader than simply improving our status in the eyes of the world. Refer to his foreign policy address (which can be found here here.) and you'll see that he has several major foreign policy goals:



That would be the "rejoining the community of nations" objective to which you were referring.







Furthermore:




This is not including the other foreign policy addresses he has made, as well as the "foreign policy" section of his website (here). As you can see, he has not shied away from discussing foreign policy or terrorism. It also makes sense that he would not, as others have said, dwell upon foreign policy to the point of neglecting domestic policy. Senator Kerry has spent years on the Senate Foreign Relations committee. As for the question of Senator Edward's capabilities as the one to ascend to the Presidency should President Kerry die, I believe that his time served on the Senate Intelligence committee is more experience than Mr. Bush had entering office. I believe that both have the experience necessary to make informed foreign policy decisions.

I guess six years in the Senate qualifies as "considerable"...

I'm not saying that shedding light on domestic issues is a bad thing. In fact, it is heartening to me for Kerry to speak about the traditionally Republican "family values". I wonder how many liberals choked when Kerry called Edwards a "man of faith"?

I think it would be healthy for the debate to be over foreign vs. domestic issues. Of course, during war, I don't think I would choose Kerry's side as the more persuasive. There is certainly a case to be made, however.

For me, the choice of Edwards indicates that Kerry wants to emphasize the domestic issues. Since the economy has abandoned Kerry as an issue, I'm not sure how far these issues will take Kerry, though.

Again, I realize that Kerry has spoken about foreign policy. In today's rabid media driven world, however, what he says today is what is most important. Things change, there is no doubt about it. But Kerry's complete lack of reference to foreign problems at this stage troubles me. I do not believe that Kerry will be soft with terrorists. I do think, however, that he is avoiding it completely as an issue.

Here is a pretty good article from MSNBC



Sums up my objections to this attack rather nicely.

I agree that Bush doesn't care about the domestic issues.

The only area that Bush can claim to have a 50% approval rating is the war on terror. And even that area is in danger of slipping below 50%.

All the polls on the economy and domestic area show Bush below 50%. So in that case there is not much of anything positive to say about his handling of the economy.

For everyone that thinks the economy is going strong.

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?...%7D&siteid=mktw



I believe the economy is going to come back to haunt the Republicans. All the homeowners have re-financed and got all the extra money out of their homes. Now there is no more extra money for the people to spend. There is not place else for the economy to do but slow down.




This question is so hilarious that I will answer it thusly so(concerning the "no foreign policy experience). I will just give you the shining example of Governor Bush and all of his foreign policy experience in the year 2000.

When did "faith" become a Republican "family value?" Is this the same Republican Party that thinks it's okay when the Vice-President tells someone to commit a sex act upon themself?

Remember back in 2000 when some smart-aleck asked Dubya if he could name the prime minister of Poland or some place like that and Bush couldn't answer. Who cared then? I'm really happy that the GOP thinks people are going to go into the voting booth because of whoever has the stronger trade policy with Monaco or will get tough with Canada for flooding our markets with their bacon.

Presidents don't HAVE to be immersed in foreign policy. That's why they hire a Secretary of State. Most people want their problems at home taken care of before worrying about what's going on across the pond.

Americans pay lip service to the idea that the Prez should be savvy about international ideas, but people vote based on domestic priorities, not foreign relations. Everyone knew Bush didn't know diddly about foreign polcy. They just trusted he would hire someone that DID. This is simply another distraction to pour cold water on the selection of John Edwards. The pocketbook issues of jobs, the economy and the future of the nation interests most Americans far more than the trade deficit with China.

The economy has hardly "abandoned" Kerry as an issue, Amlord. You seem to have glossed over the fact that a lot of people are still unemployed or under-employed. Additionally, when unemployment benefits run out those individuals are no longer counted as being unemployed. Nobody knows if they have found work or just exhausted their benefits and become invisible. Or maybe you consider a pathetic 112,000 jobs created in June to be a healthy job market?

After a few months of healthy job growth, employment grew by just 112,000 jobs in June 2004. The employment growth that began in September 2003 has not been vigorous enough to reduce unemployment, which has remained at 5.6% since January 2004, the same rate as when the recovery began in November 2001 and far higher than the 4.2% level when the recession began in March 2001. Unfortunately, underemployment in the form of involuntary part-time work, discouraged workers, and other marginally attached workers (i.e., those who have looked for work in the last year but are not counted as unemployed) has increased. Specifically, the total underemployment rate was 9.6% in June 2004, up from 9.4% in November 2001 when the recovery began, and far higher than the 7.3% in March 2001 when the recession began.

http://www.jobwatch.org/

The Bush Administration likes the idea of high-paying jobs being outsourced to India or someplace while back home those displaced workers try to get a job being a greeter at Wal-Mart. That's the kind of "foreign policy" Americans understand---and don't like.

The economy--particularly in Ohio---remains a good issue for Kerry, and with Edwards on board to point out the "Two Americas" have been very much a case of the "have-nots" and the "have-mores" under George W. Bush, this has been a very good week for the Kerry Campaign.

It's particuarly amusing to hear how the GOP is saying Kerry went with Edwards and his charisma over Dick Gephardt or Bob Graham's experience. Had Kerry went with Gephardt or Graham, the conservative would say, "Oh, it's just old-time Democrats without a single fresh idea or thought. Kerry played it safe and went with an establishment pick."

Either way the right was going to bash away at Kerry's pick, so he might as well pick the guy that actually gets the faithful excited about November.

Foreign policy...yeah, right. Like Dick Cheney's known for tripping around the globe selling the world on the American Way of Life.

Puh-leeze!