Son of Republican President Eisenhower announces support for Kerry

[Rose Siding]

TRAPPE, Md. -- John Eisenhower, son of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, says in a New Hampshire newspaper column that he will vote for Democratic Sen. John Kerry on Nov. 2.

In a public announcement rarely seen from the Talbot County resident in recent years, Eisenhower says he switched his party affiliation from Republican to independent and that he's lost confidence in his former party.
............
The 700-word column assails Bush and the GOP for federal budget deficits, for invading Iraq "unilaterally" and for infringing on Americans' personal liberties.

The Bush campaign did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2004/09/29/son_of_republican_president_eisenhower_announces_support_for_kerry/

The op-ed itself is posted in the editorial forum. I just enjoy seeing that the Bush campaign has been asked about it :)

[SpiralHawk]

1. I Like Ike

eom

[UCLA Dem]

2. Another son of a Repuke prez....wow...

maybe Bush will follow their lead and turn against himself.

[efhmc]

3. This to me is an example of a thinking, reasonable person no matter

her/his politics and there is no place in the repuke party any more fo that person.

[Cascadian]

4. Eisenhower's Republican Party is gone.

Dwight Eisenhower and the Republicans of yesteryear were far more centrist than the people running the Republican Party now. They really were for less government and fiscal conservatism. This new Republican Party is bigger government into people's lives and does more spending than the Democrats have done. The neocons talk about how Democrats "tax and spend". How about them "borrowing and spending"?

This ain't your Dad's Republican Party.


John

[Cascadian]

5. It was his dad that said beware of the military/industrial complex.

He is taking his father's message seriously it would seem.

John

[GainesT1958]

6. Exactly--that HAD to figure into his trepidations...

With where his--and his father's--Repub Party has traveled in the last twelve years.

I'm proud of John Eisenhower--and of Ron Reagan. What guts these guys have--and what vision, to boot!:D

I only hope someone like Julie Nixon Eisenhower comes around and sees the light, too.

B-)

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Second Republican with a famous name I've seen say he's voting Kerry...

the first was Theodore Roosevelt IV...it seems like the moderate-to-liberal internationalist Republicans, in the tradition of TR, Thomas Dewey, Eisenhower and (yes, surprisingly) Nixon are thoroughly disgusted and leaving their party in droves. I hope there are enough of them to make a difference.

[UpInArms]

8. Kipling's words apply to John Eisenhower

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

[progressivebydesign]

9. This is delicious... n/t

[bpilgrim]

10. link to article at TO --------------------------------------> LINK

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/093004U.shtml

Why I Will Vote for John Kerry for President
By John Eisenhower
The Manchester Union Leader

Tuesday 28 September 2004

The Presidential election to be held this coming Nov. 2 will be one of extraordinary importance to the future of our nation. The outcome will determine whether this country will continue on the same path it has followed for the last 3½ years or whether it will return to a set of core domestic and foreign policy values that have been at the heart of what has made this country great.

Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments, unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend to vote as our parents did or as we "always have." We remained loyal to party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election of 2004. There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them.

As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.

The fact is that today’s "Republican" Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word "Republican" has always been synonymous with the word "responsibility," which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.

more...
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/093004U.shtml

peace

[drscm]

11. WH Response: He has a tan and *bush did not fail at anything...

[struggle4progress]

12. kick

:kick: