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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
when <b>elitist</b> ted kennedy allows a windfarm off the coast of his Massachussetts home, i'll consider his argument for cleaner energy valid. Until then, he needs to STFU.
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dksuddeth, don't you have it backwards? Hasn't Kennedy conducted his representation of the people of Massachusetts, in the US Senate, with a decidedly populist agenda? If Kennedy is not a populist politician, who...in your opinion is? If Kennedy is, as you wrote...an "elitist", who, in your opinion, isn't?
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...emk092990b.htm
Why Ted Kennedy Can't Stand Still
By Rick Atkinson
Sunday, April 29, 1990; Page W11
......AMONG HUMAN VIRTUES, Kennedy rates loyalty very high. For nearly 30 years, he has been a faithful standard bearer for the very young and very old, for immigrants and refugees, for blacks and American Indians and blue-collar workers. For the most part, these constituencies have repaid the allegiance. An Ebony poll in 1988 found that the magazine's black readers trusted Kennedy more than any other white American. "We've always found him to be a consistent champion," adds NAACP chief Washington lobbyist Althea T.L. Simmons. Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, says, "I think Kennedy really represents the best expression of somebody on the Hill who's worried about people issues and worker issues and is doing something about it."....
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...to be sure, the US Senate is a "millionaire's club", and Kennedy is one of the millionaires....but to call him an "elitist", in view of the positions that he has taken during his career,
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...emk092990b.htm
...."It's true that he's nothing if not persistent," says one senior Bush administration official. "Eventually he will succeed in a lot of these issues."
But on others, the jury is still out. In the 1980s, Kennedy tried to modify the liberal agenda by shifting costs away from the federal treasury to businesses; his most ambitious effort in this vein involves mandatory, employer-financed health insurance, a proposal which thus far -- to Kennedy's great frustration -- has failed to muster sufficient political support. He also acknowledges responsibility for creating and sustaining some of the liberal social programs -- CETA is one example -- that eventually collapsed in failure. During the Reagan presidency, Kennedy at times was reduced to rear-guard skirmishing in a futile effort to slow the conservative Republican juggernaut. .....
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....seems a simplistic and misinformed way to describe the senior senator from Massachusetts.