(6 of 10)
But the question of Kerry's record has not gone away, and in this campaign, he has had to defend the fact that not many bills have his name on them. Kerry tried to turn Dean's recent attack on Kerry's Senate accomplishments to his advantage: "One of the things that you need to know as a President is how things work in Congress if you want to get things done," he acidly informed the country doctor at the debate last Thursday night and explained that this often meant working your ideas into bills that don't carry your name. But the Dean camp lost no time emailing reporters Kerry's Senate scorecard: 371 laws sponsored, nine of which became law, and six of those were of "a ceremonial nature," meaning renaming a federal building or designating a national POW/MIA day. Kerry's camp shot back with 12 laws for which he takes all or some credit, including ones on money laundering and child care.
Nonetheless, the three substantive bills passed with Kerry's name on them are a starting point for voters wanting a handle on his political heart. Two had to do with marine research and protecting fisheries and reflected his consistent concern for the environment. He became the early leader of the Democrats' drive to block Bush from drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He joined McCain to try, unsuccessfully, to raise average-fuel-economy standards to 36 m.p.g. by 2015, and he was an active supporter of the Kyoto accords to address global warming. The third law was designed to provide grants for women starting small businesses and reflects his entrepreneurial impulses when it comes to the tax code. He teamed with McCain again to make the Internet a tax-free zone, and while he has voted against all of Bush's tax cuts, he proposes reducing the capital-gains tax to zero in key investment-driven industries; he offers other business tax incentives to reward companies that keep jobs in the country. His idea for a dividend-tax cut even before Bush proposed one is now a sensitive subject; his advisers say he will support it only if "it is done right."
And then there is Kerry's record on deficits and spending. Conservative Democrat Fritz Hollings says he will never forget when he was collecting votes in 1985 for the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget-balancing legislation and practically every senior Democrat in the Senate shut him down. So he started trying the youngsters, including the new Senator from Massachusetts, who shocked him by responding, "We're in trouble; this budget has gotten out of hand." Kerry's support opened the door for other Democrats to vote for the measure. "Here I was--I couldn't even get conservative friends on this bill, but I got John Kerry," Hollings recalls. "He was willing to risk his political life with this vote."