Joyce L. Breckenridge – 10/17/04

This page was last updated on October 18, 2004.

Reject the politics of fear; Joyce L. Breckenridge; Beaver County Times; October 17, 2004.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

10/18/04 - A central theme of Ms. Breckenridge’s letter is that a lifelong Republican will vote for John Kerry. In my original critique I forgot to mention there are also lifelong Democrats rejecting “the politics of fear, divisiveness, and distortion” and voting for President Bush. Zell Miller (D-GA) and former New York mayor Ed Koch are only two examples.

“John Eisenhower is a lifelong Republican in the tradition of his late father, former President (and World War II general) Dwight D. Eisenhower.

“Recently, however, he has switched his party registration to Independent, and has declared that he will vote for John Kerry. In a recent article in the New Hampshire Union Leader Sunday News, he wrote, in part,

“‘Today’s Republican leadership, while not solely accountable for the loss of American jobs, encourages it with its tax code and heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very poor. Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the dangers associated with the widening socioeconomic gap in this country.

[RWC] The portions of the tax code the Kerry gang claims encourages job loss have been in place for decades; they were not enacted by “today’s Republican leadership.” John Kerry has been in the Senate for 20 years. Why has he done nothing about it until now? The reason is that the tax code does not encourage companies to send jobs overseas, but it sounds good.

Based on Mr. Eisenhower’s words, he may have been a registered Republican, but he certainly is not a conservative.

“‘I will vote for him enthusiastically. I celebrate, along with other Americans, the diversity of opinion in this country. But let it be based on careful thought. I urge everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket merely because it carries the label of the party of one’s parents or of our own ingrained habits.’

“I hope for the sake of this nation that the majority of voters can, like John Eisenhower, reject the politics of fear, divisiveness, and distortion, and vote for the person best qualified, overall, to be the leader of this nation. As evidenced in the debates, that person is clearly John Kerry.”

[RWC] When Ms. Breckenridge wrote she hopes “for the sake of this nation that the majority of voters can … reject the politics of fear, divisiveness, and distortion, and vote for the person best qualified, overall, to be the leader of this nation,” I thought she was going to say she supported President Bush. Instead, she appears to support “the politics of fear, divisiveness, and distortion.”