The GOP must be hurting for anti-Kerry arguments if this is the best they can come up with right now.
As part of a coordinated attack by the Bush campaign, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey called yesterday for US Senator John F. Kerry to resign immediately, saying that he had missed so many roll call votes in the Senate that he wasn’t representing the Commonwealth in the Senate.
Healey, Bush’s campaign co-chairwoman in Massachusetts, accused Kerry of having abandoned his duties in the Senate by missing 87 percent of the roll calls this year and 64 percent last year because he was campaigning for the presidency.
“John Kerry has left the people of Massachusetts underrepresented in one of the highest lawmaking bodies in the nation,” said Healey, speaking outside the governor’s State House office. An immediate Kerry resignation would clear the way for Governor Mitt Romney to appoint a Republican to the seat and bolster GOP strength in the Senate, where the Republicans rule by a razor-thin majority.
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The Healey attack was followed later in the day by former Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole’s call for Kerry to resign.
This is terribly silly. Sitting members of Congress who run for higher office are going to miss a lot of votes. Historically, voters have shown a great tolerance for this, regardless of party.
In fact, this is something Bush should know all about — he ran for president while officially serving as Texas’ governor. He didn’t resign to run for president, so does Healey believe he left the people of Texas underrepresented? That Bush wasn’t fully fulfilling his responsibilities?
“Arguably, an incumbent governor has many more administrative responsibilities than an incumbent United State senator has,” said state Democratic Party chairman Philip Johnston.
Asked if George Bush should have resigned as governor of Texas in 2000, Healey stepped around the question.
”We’re talking about John Kerry’s current record representing the people of Massachusetts,” Healey said.
Actually, we’re talking about a double standard. When Bush was absent from his duties as a state’s chief executive, he should be applauded. When Kerry is one of 100 and misses some votes, he should resign and let a GOP governor appoint a GOP senator. Yeah, that’s logical.
The Gadflyer’s Tom Schaller captured the absurdity of the GOP argument perfectly.
Here’s what Kerry should say: The president who spends more time on vacation than anyone, not to mention the time he has already spent on the campaign trail, is clearly too busy to both run for president and be president, so I’ll resign if he does.