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October 27, 2004
Carter, Adams a hit at PVT candidates' night
By PHILLIP GOMEZ
Moderated by local developer Tim Hafen and sponsored by the Pahrump Valley Times, the highlight of the evening for many at the Saddle West Hotel and Casino was the appearance of Las Vegas resident Jack Carter, son of former president Jimmy Carter, speaking on behalf of Democratic Senator and presidential hopeful John Kerry. Carter tried, in true democratic fashion, to dispel the fact that Kerry is still unfamiliar, an unknown quantity to many people in the country. "In every town of this size there are probably 10 to 15 people who would be a good president," he told the Pahrump audience. The main thing that separates ordinary mortals from presidential candidates, he said, was their inordinate drive to be elected to the highest office in the land. "I would say my daddy was pretty single-minded when he decided he wanted to be president." And like Kerry, but from the opposite regional perspective, it took a long time in 1976 when his father ran for president for the nation "to get over (its) hostility against the South." Similarly, some people have prejudices against anyone running from Massachusetts, Carter said in his opening remarks. His mostly older audience seemed astonished at how closely Carter resembled his father 28 years ago in looks as well as speech and mannerisms. "You would probably vote for him to be mayor," Carter said of Kerry, representing the Democrat as an ordinary kind of guy. "He does have ambition, but he's not going to be a strange guy you're not going to like once he gets into office." Nevada Veterans for Bush Chairman Paul Adams, representing the wartime president, said, "President Bush has taken the fight to the terrorists." The war in Iraq was not a diversion, as the Democrats charge, he said, but "an integral part of the war on terrorists." Saddam Hussein's country was the most hospitable to al Qaeda after 9-11, he said. "It was necessary to take him out," Adams said. "The president has made the hard decision to take him out." Kerry, he said, has no experience leading the country. Though he says he has a plan, "It changes every time depending on his audience. Leadership means sometimes making the difficult decisions. "The president has shown leadership in the war against terrorism," he said. When Hafen asked Carter the question: "Why haven't we caught bin Laden?" Carter said, "Why don't you ask Paul?" Adams replied, "We're not sure where he's hiding. You don't send a division into Bora Bora. You send in Special Forces and the Afghanis to look for him. ... We don't know if he is alive or where he is, but right now he is shut down." Adams repeated the Bush campaign's insistence, against established evidence to the contrary, that "al Qaeda has a long record of ties to Iraq." The audience booed. "Go ahead and delude yourself," Adams said, sitting down. Carter responded to the charge that Kerry lacked experience. He has many years of experience as a lawyer and legislator in Congress, he said. As president, it's true he has no experience compared to Bush's four years in the White House. "But ... after Kerry is elected he'll have four years, too." Carter also spoke up for incumbent Sen. Harry Reid and Sen. Jim Gibbons' challenger, Democrat Angie Cochran, saying Nevada will be in "a very favored spot if we pick up a couple more Democratic senators." Neither Gibbons nor a representative from his campaign bothered to attend the event. Cochran, from Pahrump, was there just moments before the speeches began but she left without addressing the audience. Neither candidate has made an official appearance in Pahrump this election, a fact that seems to have mystified supporters in both camps. Carter said the Democrats have become, since his father's time, the party of responsible stewardship in balancing the budget. Speaking of President Bush's military spending, he said, "As long as he is running these deficits it's going to be very hard for him to fund anything." Carter's reference was to Adams' earlier statement that Bush was trying to work out a long-term solution for veterans and their long-neglected medical care. "The administration is working very hard to improve the delivery of care to this country," Adams said. But Carter pooh-poohed such efforts. "The Republican party stands with the people who make the drugs; the Democratic party stands with the people who use them," he said of the high cost of prescription drugs, an issue that has become crucial to senior citizens on fixed incomes. Very few people in the Pahrump audience shared the economic interests of Republicans, Carter asserted. He added, in reference to the wealth of the Republican Party and its image as the party of the upper classes, "Some people want to be uppity." On that note Hafen called off the debate on what has been called the most critical and heated presidential election in modern memory. Still, Adams proved himself an eloquent speaker and, as a veteran he undoubtedly connected with other veterans regardless of party affiliation, as well as others who support Bush's stance regarding the war on terror. Hafen commented on how the exchange between the two men was every bit as good as the three presidential debates recently held. |
