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Home Front: Politix
John F. Kerry's Spanish campaign
2004-07-14
For the first time, a US Presidential candidate has launched a campaign in Spain in an effort to win the votes of the 200,000 Americans who live here. We talked to the Spaniard leading John F. Kerry's campaign a long way from Washington.

Juan Verde was born in the Canary Islands, thousands of kilometres from the White House. But this 34-year-old high-flier is leading the first campaign ever launched in Spain specifically to attract the votes of expat Americans living here. Verde, who read politics and international science at Boston University and then got a Masters in public administration at Harvard. He was political and economic advisor to the mayor of Boston, then a consultant on overseas trade at the White House during the Clinton administration. Verde was elected as a Democratic delegate in Massachusetts in 1997 and has worked on campaigns for Edward and Joe Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
Ok, he's a hard core Donk flunky from my ex-state of Mass.
There are thought to be up to 200,000 Americans living and working in Spain. They are made up of a wide variety of people, from the servicemen and women stationed at the main US base at La Rota, business people, professionals, diplomats, or simply retirees. The Kerry campaign believes it can win the votes of between 35,000-50,000 American expats. It is part of a worldwide campaign targeted at some 4 million Americans living oversees whose votes could be crucial when America goes to the polls in November. The idea to launch country-specific campaigns came from Kerry's sister Diana, who is heading an international Democrat campaign.
It goes on to interview Juan. Interesting look at a campaign that is flying below press radar, wonder if US election rules apply? If Kerry is so desperate for these overseas votes, will the donks allow the overseas military to vote this time?
Posted by:Steve

#6  Thank you, AF. No, I didn't. Yet. ;)
Posted by: jules 2   2004-07-14 8:43:24 PM  

#5  Jules...absolutely wonderful and eloguently spoken. Did you convince your friend?
Posted by: AF Lady   2004-07-14 8:16:42 PM  

#4  Spanish Campaign?
Hell you don't think?
Wait a second... he is half Irish...
Posted by: Shipman   2004-07-14 4:57:27 PM  

#3  Usually I try to keep comments short on rantburg, but since this story highlights so well who Kerry relates to best, and since this is such an important election, I thought I would attach this missive I sent a Kerry-loving friend:

There are many reasons why I could support Kerry-gay rights, legal abortion, and resistance to outsourcing perhaps being the most important. There is one big reason I will never vote for Kerry: he will harm America and the world by doing whatever it takes to satisfy international public opinion, which is never sated, and which today is all about punishing the powerful (America). He willingly embraces that particular kind of neurotic guilt complex common to liberal America, and the international community just laps it up. It's not healthy, we certainly don't deserve it, and I, like others, don't respond well to demands for America to change while most of the rest of the world is carrying a prodigious Jacob Marley's chain of its own and gets off scot free. We are still the best thing this world has going.

Had Kerry been president after 9/11, Saddam would have stayed in power and would have tortured and murdered thousands more Iraqis. And food-for-oil corruption would have been swept under the rug so as not to upset French deals with Saddam. Kerry will be the water boy for every lethal, misguided notion the Europeans have. Europe needs to wake up-there is such a thing as evil; if we followed Mr. Chirac's philosophy of "war is never justified", they'd be breeding little Aryans in France today and there wouldn't be a Jew alive. Europe's cushy existence makes them forget that for every form of life on earth, you have to fight for survival, against death.

Kerry insists he could have gotten the French, Germans and Russians, among others, to be helpful and behave more like allies vis-a-vis Iraq's provocation. But guaranteeing the future actions of questionable allies is boastful and reckless and does not take into account their antagonism towards America. Unless he realizes that many Americans, like myself, are sick of the pocket-pinching, scapegoating, and cowering of the Europeans and international community in general, he is going to lose votes. He lost mine.
Posted by: jules 187   2004-07-14 2:33:02 PM  

#2  Good point about the overseas military vote. In 2000, I voted absentee for Florida while stationed in Germany... and my vote was thrown out. (yes I voted for Bush). It was thrown out because of a notary issue. We didnt have a notary available, so I used my company commander as a witness.
So there you have it. A vote for Bush that was thrown out.
Posted by: JackAssFestival   2004-07-14 2:31:41 PM  

#1  Wow. This guy should've stayed here in Mass. With those credentials, he could've become "Super Hack".
Posted by: tu3031   2004-07-14 9:41:17 AM  

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