"So petty, so sad"

Published June 24, 2004 4:50PM (EDT)

Looks like John Kerry is still sore about the tactics of Senate Republicans that kept him waiting to cast a vote in the Capitol. The Los Angeles Times reports that yesterday on the campaign trail, Kerry attacked both the Senate leadership and President Bush: "The Massachusetts senator told the union members that after he scrapped a day of campaign events to return to Washington for a vote on a veterans' healthcare proposal, the Senate leadership kept the measure off the floor out of political spite."

"'These people are so petty, so sad, so political, that all they could do was spend the whole day finding a way not to let John Kerry vote,' he said." According to the Times, Kerry said at another fundraiser: "That's the way they playThat's what's at stake in this race. George Bush talked about being a uniter, not a divider. But he's been the greatest divider as a president in the modern history of this nation."

"The response from the GOP? 'Had he stayed in town until today, he would have had a chance to vote on many amendments, but that was not his priority,' said Bob Stevenson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist." Maybe, unless the Senate Republican leadership found a way to delay the vote -- and Kerry's presidential campaign -- even longer with the presumed Democratic nominee in town.

But the Democrats did win one Senate vote yesterday. The Massachusetts State Senate passed a bill that would keep Republican Mitt Romney from appointing someone to fill Kerry's U.S. Senate seat if he wins the presidency. With the 2004 Senate race so close, you can't be too careful.


By Stephen W. Stromberg

Stephen W. Stromberg is a former editorial fellow at Salon.

MORE FROM Stephen W. Stromberg


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