Senator Kerry sent the following letter from Senator Ted Kennedy in an email to the johnkerry.com community this morning:

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It's crunch time heading into February 5th -- Super Tuesday -- and this week I'm introducing you to some voices in the johnkerry.com community who share my commitment to electing Barack Obama to serve as our next President of the United States. Today: my good friend and fellow Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy.

Thanks,
John Kerry




It's your turn.

Moments like this don’t come often.

Yesterday in Washington I took the stage with my niece Caroline and son Patrick to pledge our support for Barack Obama: a candidate who has the unique ability to transcend the politics of fear and division to bring the change in America we so desperately need.

This isn’t the first endorsement you’ve heard about – and I hope it won’t be the last. A few weeks ago, John Kerry gave his and now with the "Super Tuesday" primaries a week away, the Obama campaign needs support from everyone who will give it. That’s why I’m asking you to join us and support Barack Obama’s campaign for change.

Every time I've been asked over the past year who I would support in the Democratic Primary, my answer has always been the same: I'll support the candidate who inspires me, who inspires all of us, who can lift our vision and summon our hopes and renew our belief that our country's best days are still to come.

I've found that candidate.

We have three great candidates still in the race, and while I have a great amount of respect for both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, I believe there is one candidate who has extraordinary gifts of leadership and character, matched to the extraordinary demands of this moment in history.

Barack Obama should be the next President of the United States. I see in him a man who can bring transformative change to our country.

There is the great intelligence of someone who could have had a glittering career in corporate law, but chose instead to serve his community and then enter public life.

There is the tireless skill of a Senator who was there in the early mornings to help us hammer out a needed compromise on immigration reform – who always saw a way to protect both national security and the dignity of people who do not have a vote. For them, he was a voice for justice.

There is the clear effectiveness of Barack Obama in fashioning legislation to put high quality teachers in our classrooms – and in pushing and prodding the Senate to pass the most far-reaching ethics reform in its history.

And on an issue very important to me, I believe that Barack Obama can bring about real change in our health care system in this country. He can break the stalemate of our politics and make health care what it should be in this country: a fundamental right for all, not just an expensive privilege for the few.

His deep commitment to health care can move us beyond the gridlock of past battles and into a new era when at last affordable, accessible health care becomes a right for all and not a privilege for the few. He's already proven his abilities, authoring a health care expansion in Illinois that brought coverage to many who didn't have any. And he's worked with me on our efforts to get the SCHIP program expanded over the veto of President Bush.

He knows from his work as a community organizer how vital it is to get all Americans the health care they deserve. His work on the issue combines a compassion for those in need with a tough-minded resolution to find solutions.

I am convinced we can reach our goals only if we are "not petty when our cause is so great" – only if we find a way past the stale ideas and stalemate of our times – only if we replace the politics of fear with the politics of hope – and only if we have the courage to choose change.

Barack Obama is the one person running for President who can bring us that change.

Barack Obama is the one person running for President who can be that change.

Now it’s your turn to join John and I and support the Obama campaign. Support the next generation of American leadership:

http://my.barackobama.com/tedkennedy

I love this country. I believe in the bright light of hope and possibility. I always have, even in the darkest hours. I know what America can achieve. I've seen it. I've lived it – and with Barack Obama, we can do it again.


Sincerely,

Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Senator Kerry sent the following letter from Rep. Patrick Murphy in an email to the entire johnkerry.com community this morning:

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Coming out of an historic South Carolina victory, it's crunch time heading into February 5th -- and this week I'll be introducing you to some voices in the johnkerry.com community who share my commitment to electing Barack Obama President of the United States. First up: Representative Patrick Murphy, an Iraq War veteran whom many of you supported in his first race for Congress.

Thanks,
John Kerry




Barack Obama will bring real change to our Iraq policy

Exactly four years ago today, I returned home from Iraq. Nineteen of my fellow paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne weren’t as lucky. I witnessed George Bush’s failed strategy firsthand and was determined to do something about it and start bringing our troops home. Now, as the first and only Iraq war veteran in Congress, I take seriously my responsibility to call for a new foreign policy, and to making sure our nation fulfills its promise to my fellow veterans.

We need a President who has the vision, the judgment, and the courage to make this change become a reality. Barack Obama will be that President.

From the beginning, Barack had the foresight to speak out against the war and the Bush Administration's terrible mismanagement of it.

Barack Obama will put an end to Bush’s policy blunders and bring our troops home safely and responsibly. Barack and I introduced the Iraq De-escalation Act. (You can view details of our plan at my website, www.murphy08.com.)

Our bill calls for clear benchmarks, a clear timeline for redeployment and a strategic strike force to combat al Qaeda. Most importantly, this redeployment from Iraq will give our military the personnel and equipment it needs to redouble its efforts at destroying al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. We need Senator Obama's comprehensive approach to foreign policy and we need to make sure that we are fighting on the right battlefields.

Barack Obama will bring a new approach to foreign policy, one that understands the world as it really is. He will restore our reputation around the globe and end the Bush vision of foreign policy as a political weapon. And when a Republican candidate tells us that we’ll be in Iraq for 100 years, we know that a change in foreign policy can’t wait one more day.

Barack is also committed to getting our veterans proper treatment. He is the grandson of a World War II veteran and serves on the Senate’s Veteran’s Affairs Committee that just passed the largest increase in veterans’ benefits in the 77 year history of the Veterans Administration. As President, he pledged to have a "zero tolerance" policy for homelessness among our veterans. On any given night, there are 200,000 veterans living on the streets in this country. As President, Barack will end this injustice.

But to truly change our nation's direction, we need more than just new policies. We need you. A few weeks ago, I was up in New Hampshire door-knocking and talked with a 20-year old woman named Julie. She and her brother were supporting Senator Obama. She said, "My brother is a Marine who just left for his fourth deployment in Iraq. We feel that if Obama is our next Commander-in-Chief, he won’t have to go back for a fifth deployment."

That is what this election is about. I know Senator Obama has a rare ability to lead that doesn't come along very often. We need a fundamental change both at home and abroad, and I believe Barack Obama will bring about that change if we give him a chance.


Thank you,

Patrick Murphy
U.S. Representative, (D) PA-08

When most politicians publish diaries and OPs on sites like Daily Kos and Huffington Post, they’re just drive-by postings of campaign statements and other generic material. JK isn’t like most politicians, though. He actually reads the comments and, whenever he can squeeze a few extra minutes from his hectic daily schedule, replies to them in the threads and in updates to the diaries. Here are a couple of comments and replies from last week’s Daily Kos thread, in which JK answers a couple of questions that a lot of posters have wanted to know more about his stance on.

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Can you please,,,,

watch Dodd and Feingold’s backs now?

Telcom immmunity is not acceptable.

by Miss Blue on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 01:29:28 PM PST

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voted with them from the start

I voted with Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd against the motion to proceed with this FISA bill back before recess – and if you remember the Alito fight, you know where I stand on the Constitutional rights of the American people.

by John Kerry on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 02:00:07 PM PST

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Sen Kerry

Thank you for speaking out against this. And thank you again for coming to the funeral of my brother, Sgt. Russell Durgin and being there for my mother.

However, I do have to express my disappointment in your endorsement of Obama. While I am supporting John Edwards, I could respect your decision to go with Obama. What I can’t support is the new phenomenon of people waiting until the several primaries have taken place until making an endorsement. I’m sure you (and the others doing this) would deny it, but it’s pretty obvious this is about waiting to see who you think can win rather than standing up early and strongly for someone you truly think would be the best candidate. In other words, if you really believe Obama is the best choice, then that endorsement should have been announced earlier.

by RIP Russ on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 01:35:29 PM PST

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my thoughts

First of all, thank you for what your family has given our country. I know sometimes those just sound like words, but they’re more than that.

You make an interesting point about the timing of my endorsement, and it’s actually something I wrestled with. Let me share my thinking with you a little.

First, in my judgment, the outcome of this race is far far from clear. It’s a dogfight. I endorsed Barack after he’d lost a tough fight in New Hampshire. I actually think that tells you how much I believe in my choice more than had I jumped on a bandwagon of some kind. If I had wanted to wait until the outcome was clear, I wouldn’t have endorsed yet. This is still a very open race. I’m not playing it safe.

But the second point—I want you to know this. It was a difficult decision. I gave a lot of thought to the timing. I wrestled with a feeling that for friends and colleagues of mine, and people I really cared about who were grinding it out in Iowa, they deserved the chance to make their case to the voters on their own, and not have the perception of someone parachuting in to get in the way of the intimate process that is Iowa.

I remember feeling that way and bristling a little bit before Iowa and New Hampshire myself in 2003 and 2004 when some big name endorsements seemed to block out the sun for a few news cycles! And I took that to heart and really struggled with it this time. So, you may disagree with it, but I want you to know my thinking.

by John Kerry on Wed Jan 23, 2008 at 03:02:47 PM PST

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Senator Kerry posted a diary on Daily Kos this week addressing the Republican fear-and-smear machine and how we all need to fight back against the right wing’s ongoing and underhanded pursuit of the politics of personal destruction:

I hate the term “Swiftboating.” I hate how the name of the boats we honored when we were in uniform in Vietnam has become a verb for the twisted politics of Karl Rove.

But today we need to fight the right wing’s tactics not just to reclaim a word, but to reclaim our democracy.

And for anyone who thinks, “we don’t even have a nominee yet, are the Republicans really attacking Democratic presidential candidates already?” — the answer is not just yes, but it matters (and, yes, some people are really asking that).

Just think back to April of 2003. Yes, 2003.

In the New York Times the Republican narrative was first introduced:

“Another Bush adviser said of Mr. Kerry, ‘He looks French’.”

In the same article, anonymous Republicans described John Edwards as the “Breck Girl”.

Bottom line — we can’t wait until we have a Democratic ticket to combat the right wing’s efforts to “frame” our candidates.

Yesterday, I sent out an email to Barack Obama’s email community urging people to fight against the vicious smears from the modern conservative movement (they began in a right-wing magazine) that have been bouncing around the Internet for months.

I’m supporting Barack Obama because I think he’s the right person for this moment, but I have — and I will — condemn and fight against these kinds of smears no matter who is the target.

In the last few years, I’ve defended Jack Murtha, Patrick Murphy, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and others (including a candidate in a state house race in New Jersey) from the smears of the right wing, and I’ll defend many more patriots in the months ahead.

I’ll defend the nominee of our party, no matter who it is, and I’ll defend people like Mark Udall in a Senate race in Colorado, or Jon Powers in a House race in central New York, or state house candidates across the country.

The right-wing has nothing to offer but fear and smears, and they are gearing up to deliver plenty of it.

Already we hear of a conservative group with ties to the Bush White House — Freedom’s Watch — that plans to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on this election. I think we all know enough about how the right-wing operates to know that this money won’t go to helping voters make informed choices. That money will go to smearing candidates across America, up and down the ballot.

[ ... ]

I’ll be devoting some serious time, resources, and energy from both my staff and myself in fighting these smears and empowering all of you to fight them as well. I’ll have more on what you can do to help combat smears as we go forward.

We can’t let the right-wing steal another election with lies and distortions.

This article appeared in today’s print and online editions of the Boston Globe newspaper:

‘SWIFT-BOATED’ ONCE, KERRY NOW HELMS DEMOCRATS’ ARMADA

Vows to defend colleagues against political smears

by Bryan Bender
Globe Staff / January 24, 2008

WASHINGTON – Senator John F. Kerry, who believes his failure to respond forcefully to attacks on his military record when he ran for president in 2004 contributed to his defeat, has embraced a new role as chief defender when his Democratic Party colleagues — including presidential candidate Barack Obama — are dogged by smear campaigns.

Since President Bush defeated him four years ago, the junior senator from Massachusetts has come to the defense of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, US Representative John Murtha, and an Iraq war veteran running for Congress. Kerry has aggressively defended them when conservative activists and anonymous detractors targeted them with rumors.

Kerry’s latest mission: taking on what he calls the “disgusting lies” on the Internet and in the right-wing media questioning Obama’s patriotism and faith. Kerry, who recently endorsed Obama, vowed yesterday to use his unique experience to defend the Democrats from the same kind of “swift boating” tactics that Republican operatives used to help sink his presidential campaign.

“Whoever our nominee is, I will absolutely do whatever is necessary to fight and condemn these smears,” Kerry told the Globe yesterday. “We are going to push back and try to hold people accountable. The worst thing you can do is be silent. You have to stay at it. That was [our] mistake [in 2004]. There should have been more dollars spent putting out the truth.”

During the 2004 race, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth aired television ads saying that Kerry, the Democrats’ presidential nominee, had made “exaggerated claims” about his four-month tour of duty as the skipper of a Navy patrol-boat crew in South Vietnam. The group said Kerry — who won several medals while serving in Vietnam but later became an outspoken opponent of the war — made “phony” charges that US troops committed war crimes.

The ads, paid for by leading Republican contributors but not directly linked to the Bush campaign, made headlines and led nightly newscasts. Kerry, according to top aides, deeply regrets that he did not aggressively confront the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks. He said yesterday he is still trying to set the record straight.

But Kerry has also sought to vindicate himself by coming to the aid of fellow Democrats who find themselves in similar predicaments.

In the fall of 2005, for example, Kerry was among the first to defend Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and decorated former Marine Corps officer, against right-wing attacks following Murtha’s vociferous opposition to the Iraq war. Kerry took the Senate floor to defend Murtha, a fellow Vietnam veteran, and took part in grass-roots efforts to highlight Murtha’s courageous military service.

A year later, Kerry stood up for Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war veteran trying to unseat Representative Michael Fitzpatrick in the Philadelphia suburbs. Fitzpatrick had enlisted military veterans to attack Murphy’s service record; Murphy won the election.

“It disgusts me that a congressman who has never worn the uniform of our country stands there in silence as a veteran home from Iraq has his service disparaged,” Kerry wrote at the time in a statement posted on numerous blogs and published in news reports.

Salacious political rumors and whisper campaigns are as old as American politics, but the advent of the Internet has made it more difficult for a candidate to bring them under control.

The falsehoods about Obama are the latest example. A chain e-mail falsely reports that Obama is a Muslim who was indoctrinated as a youth in a radical Islamist academy when his family lived in Indonesia. It also incorrectly alleges he was sworn in as a senator using a Koran and is anti-American for refusing to put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, used his family’s Bible for his Senate swearing-in ceremony, and has led the pledge in the Senate.

Though the rumors have repeatedly been debunked, the e-mail that spread them has reportedly shown up recently on a Republican Party website and has been widely distributed in South Carolina, where Democrats vote in a primary Saturday.

In a taped telephone message, Kerry tells South Carolina voters: “I can assure you, [Obama] lives his Christian faith, and that’s the only faith he’s ever practiced. So if you get an ugly e-mail with false rumors, do your part to shoot down ‘swift boating.’ “

But Kerry worries the political smear tactics will only get worse.

“The attacks in 2004 started as an anonymous e-mail campaign,” he said in the interview yesterday. “This is a highly developed process by which [Republicans] try to destroy people on a personal level. l think it’s cowardly and I dislike it intensely.”

I support Barack Obama because he doesn't seek to perfect the politics of Swiftboating — he seeks to end it.

This is personal for me, and for a whole lot of Americans who lived through the 2004 election.

As a veteran, it disgusts me that the Swift Boats we loved while we were in uniform on the Mekong Delta have been rendered, in Karl Rove's twisted politics, an ugly verb meaning to lie about someone's character just to win an election.

But as someone who cares about winning this election and changing the country I love, I know it's not enough to complain about a past we can't change when our challenge is to win the future — which is why we must stop the Swiftboating, stop the push-polling, stop the front groups, and stop the email chain smears.

The truth matters, but how you fight the lies matters even more. We must be determined never again to lose any election to a lie.

This year, the attacks are already starting. Some of you may have heard about the disgusting lies about Barack Obama that are being circulated by email. These attacks smear Barack's Christian faith and deep patriotism, and they distort his record of more than two decades of public service. They are nothing short of Swiftboat-style anonymous attacks.

These are the same tactics the right has used again and again, and as we've learned, these attacks, no matter how bogus, can spread and take root if they go unchecked.

But not this time — we're fighting back.

And when I say "we," I mean that literally. I know Barack is committed to fighting every smear every time. He'll fight hard and stand up for the truth. But he can't do it alone.

We need you to email the truth to your address books. Print it out and post it at work. Talk to your neighbors. Call your local radio station. Write a letter to the editor. If lies can be spread virally, let's prove to the cynics that the truth can be every bit as persuasive as it is powerful.

The Obama campaign has created a place where you can find the truth you'll need to push back on these smears and a way to spread the truth to all of your address book:

http://my.barackobama.com/factcheckaction

So when your inbox fills up with trash and the emails of smear and fear, find the facts, and help defeat the lies.

Barack Obama is committed to bringing our country together to meet the challenges we face, but he knows that power gives up nothing without a struggle -- and to win the chance to change America, we must first defeat the hateful tactics that have been used to tear us apart for too long.

The fight is just heating up -- we won't let them steal this election with lies and distortions.

With your help, we can turn the page on an era of small, divisive politics -- but only if next time you hear these attacks on Barack, you take action immediately.

For too many years, American politics has been divided between two types of people: those who want more people to vote, and those who want fewer people to vote.

Just last week, the Bush-packed Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the kind of law we’ve become all too familiar with these last years: an Indiana law putting more roadblocks in the way of people who simply want to vote. (Talk about a not so subtle reminder of why some of us filibustered Sam Alito’s nomination two years ago this month.)

Well, it’s troubling to me that now we see another kind of effort to keep people from voting in Nevada. But this time, it’s not the Republicans trying to limit the vote, it’s a fight within our own Party.

Every Democratic Presidential campaign should condemn this effort in a heartbeat. This is just plain and simple a matter of principle not politics; the Party that marched alongside Dr. King and stood up with President Kennedy to open the schoolhouse doors in Alabama needs to be the Party of enfranchisement not disenfranchisement in Nevada this Saturday. Some convictions are just too important to be bent and broken to try and tip a few votes this way or that.

Here are the details. Last March, the Nevada Democratic Party came together and put together the rules of the caucus. Because of the high number of casino workers in Las Vegas, and because those workers have to work on weekends, the Democrats of Nevada decided to have special, at-large caucus sites in certain select areas (like right on the Vegas Strip) to give those working people a chance to make their voices heard. The Culinary Workers Union, who represents the workers, celebrated the move.

Suddenly, a mere days before the caucus, we now see a lawsuit to shut down those at-large sites and deny the casino workers their right to vote. Three of the plaintiffs voted for the very plan they’re now trying to block – reasonable people have guessed they’re changing their minds presumably because just a few days ago the Culinary Workers Union endorsed Barack Obama.

Here’s the bottom line. I understand people gut it out to win on Election Day. But certain tactics make victory pyrrhic – empty – hollow – and it’s not worth winning if you lose what really counts in the process. And you know what, if the Culinary Workers had backed someone besides my choice in this race – Barack Obama – I’d still say it’s right for every candidate to make sure these workers get to vote.

Whether it’s scrubbing African-Americans from the voting rolls, challenging the registrations of people with Hispanic surnames, or not providing enough voting machines in the neighborhoods of working families, the right-wing has spent years denying people the right to vote in the pursuit of raw political gain. All this time, Democrats have stood up for the rights of all people to cast their votes. We need to remain that kind of Party—voter suppression is wrong, all the time, anywhere.

Open the caucus sites, and let people vote.



Cross-posted at TPM Cafe

Martin Luther King said, “The time is always right to do what is right.” So I’m choosing this time to share an important decision I’ve made, one I believe is right for this country.

The JohnKerry.com community has been very important to me and very important to the Democratic resurgence over the last couple of years. So I want to share with you my conviction that in a field of fine Democratic candidates, the next President of the United States can be, should be, and will be Barack Obama.

Each of our candidates would make a fine President, and we are blessed with a strong field. But for this moment, at this time in our nation’s history, Barack Obama is the right choice.

Please join me in supporting Barack Obama’s candidacy.

I’m proud to have helped introduce Barack to our nation when I asked him to speak to our national convention, and there Barack’s words and vision burst out. On that day he reminded Americans that our “true genius is faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.” And with his leadership we can build simple dreams, and we can turn millions of small miracles into real change for our country.

At this particular moment, with our country faced with great challenges in our economy, in our environment, and in our foreign policy, and with our politics torn by division, Barack Obama can bring transformation to our country.