Kerry Calls for Rhetorical Cease-Fire

After a week of increasingly shrill partisan sniping, presumed Democratic nominee John F. Kerry on Saturday called on President Bush to help him elevate the tone of the presidential campaign, urging his opponent to join him for monthly forums in the spirit of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.

The Bush campaign dismissed Kerry’s proposal as political posturing.

During a swing through a town in western Illinois that hosted one of the seven famous Senate race debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, Kerry bemoaned the glibness and negativity that had characterized this year’s race.

“Campaigns too often generate more heat than light, firing up partisans while leaving increasing numbers of our fellow citizens out in the cold,” he told several hundred people in a junior high school gym. “Candidates find it easier to exchange insults than to face issues.”

In recent days, the tenor has been especially heated.

Last weekend, Kerry accused Bush of stonewalling the commissions investigating the Sept. 11 attacks and the intelligence problems leading up to the Iraq war.

The president responded by charging that Kerry had proposed budget cuts that would have gutted the nation’s intelligence programs.

Later in the week, the Massachusetts senator was overheard referring to his Republican critics as “the most crooked ... lying group I’ve ever seen.”

On Friday, the Bush campaign challenged Kerry’s tax and defense stances in a hard-hitting television commercial.

The exchanges are escalating even though the Democratic contender has not yet been declared the official party nominee. On Saturday, he won 72% of the vote in the Kansas caucuses, where 33 delegates were at stake. Illinois, with 156 delegates, will hold its primary Tuesday.

While noting Saturday that “everyone in politics shares the blame,” Kerry did not apologize for the charged remarks he made earlier in the week.

A Bush campaign spokesman said the senator was guilty of the same behavior he was decrying.

“After calling Republicans crooks and liars, running 17 negative ads over 15,000 times and spending $6.3 million attacking the President, John Kerry is now calling for a civil debate on the issues,” the spokesman, Steve Schmidt, said in a statement. “Sen. Kerry should finish the debate with himself before he starts trying to explain his positions to the voters.”

After his speech, Kerry stopped in the school’s recreation room -- converted to a press room for the day so reporters could file their stories -- and played a round of pingpong with a reporter. But he would not take questions and left quickly.

Spokesman David Wade said the senator did not view his reference to his critics as “crooked” as part of the problem, noting that Kerry was not talking about Bush. Wade added that Kerry would not hesitate to use similar language to defend himself in the future.

“He’s going to tell it like it is,” Wade said.

But on Saturday, the Massachusetts senator adopted comparatively mild language.

“I have come here today because I believe this campaign should be and could be different,” he said. “President Bush and I can do better -- and America deserves better.”

By coming to Quincy, his campaign sought to invoke the gaunt visage of Lincoln, “another very tall, thin man,” noted Kate Dickut, a ninth-grade student at the junior high school who introduced the candidate.

Kerry said that while Lincoln and Douglas clashed in their forums, they argued over policy differences and inspired those who heard them.

“Already, the Bush campaign has started airing their long-announced ... negative attack ads,” he said. “And our campaign answered to set the record straight. But America shouldn’t have to put up with eight months of sniping.”

He rebuked the Bush campaign for claiming that he would raise taxes by $900 billion, a figure Republicans extrapolated from the cost of Kerry’s proposed healthcare plan, and denounced politics that “descend into a battle over the lowest common denominator.”

Kerry compared his debate proposal to the eight forums he participated in during his 1996 reelection campaign against Republican Gov. William F. Weld, noting that the two remained congenial after the race.

“Maybe it’s possible after it’s all over, George Bush and I will be able to sit down together at a Red Sox-Rangers game and shake hands as friends,” Kerry said. “I’ll tell you this: That would be an election that Americans would win in the end.” Many of those in the audience welcomed Kerry’s call for a change in the political tenor, even as they expressed doubt about whether it was possible.

“I don’t want to listen to negative ads for eight months, but I’m curious about whether it actually can be done,” said Debbie Higbee Roberts, 34, a middle and high school band teacher from Hannibal, Mo.

Ginny Dorethy, 61, who attended the speech with her two sisters, said she hoped Kerry would be able to alter the tone of the debate. “They need to stop the negativity of the campaign,” said Dorethy, an unemployed administrative specialist from Augusta. The three women nodded vigorously.