The Fresno Bee has a daily circulation of around 160,000 and almost 200,000 for Sunday circulation. Although they endorsed Gore in 2000, the endorsement in a red area still carries some weight. They also have the Modesto Bee and Sacramento Bee.
Kerry for president
Nation needs a new course at home and abroad.
When he campaigned in 2000, George W. Bush said he would be a "uniter, not a divider." The closeness of that election made that unlikely, and the course of his administration has made the very idea preposterous. The nation has paid a steep price during the Bush presidency -- mounting deficits and debt at home, loss of standing and effectiveness abroad.
Based on the president's record, he has not earned a second term. Fortunately, there is an alternative. Sen. John Kerry offers an experienced, steady choice to lead the nation in a different direction.
Voters have plenty of reasons to deny Bush a second term, but two stand out. Consider the twin centerpieces of the Bush presidency -- the war in Iraq and tax cuts.
The invasion of Iraq was a war of choice, not of necessity. It has overextended our military and limited our options in dealing with the more immediate threats of al-Qaida and nuclear proliferation.
In the rush to war, Bush assumed the presence of weapons of mass destruction but did not confirm it -- and none were found. He assumed an easy change of regimes and, thus, did not anticipate the current insurgency. He didn't even make sure that our forces secured conventional weapons and ammunition dumps, which are now being raided and used to attack American soldiers and Iraqis. The very thing Bush said he sought to prevent -- the spread of weapons to terrorists -- he has brought about. Bush had broad support among the American people and international community to overturn the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that harbored Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. But instead of properly securing that country, Bush opened a second front in Iraq, diverting economic and security resources and squandering good will in Congress and abroad.
Some in the Bush administration suggested -- correctly -- that Iraq was the wrong war. They were skeptical of Iraq's weapons threat and suggested invasion and occupation would take 300,000 American troops and cost Americans $100 billion to $200 billion. They were sidelined or got the boot.
On the issue of tax cuts, the pattern is similar. After signing a $1 trillion tax cut package in June 2001 (an initiative The Bee supported), Bush sought to take advantage of the national unity after Sept. 11 to push through more tax cuts.
Then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill argued against this second round of tax cuts. He was fired.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan described the new tax cuts as fiscally irresponsible when the government was going heavily into debt after Sept. 11 and the war in Afghanistan.
The results were as predictable as they were serious: Bush is now running up the biggest deficits in American history.
John Kerry has substantial experience in foreign policy and a long interest in stopping terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Those are the two most important foreign policy issues of our time.
Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984, he is a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations.
Where Bush has relied primarily on unilateral, military approaches and weakened our alliances, Kerry would use all the tools in our toolbox -- economic and diplomatic capabilities, as well as military power -- to confront international issues. Kerry would be committed to a sustained effort to repair alliances and control weapons of mass destruction.
No one should underestimate the difficulty of this task. If elected, Kerry would inherit the cards dealt by Bush in Iraq and would have limited options there. But he would bring a new mind-set and a new cast of advisers for making and carrying out policy.
The Bush campaign attempts to paint Kerry as a dangerous leftist who wants to increase government's role in public life. That's nonsense. Kerry never has been rigidly ideological. He supported welfare reform in 1996. He co-sponsored the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit-reduction bill, his first major act when he arrived in Congress in 1985. He helped forge the 1997 agreement that balanced the federal budget for the first time since 1969.
But he would pay more attention to jobs and health care than Bush has done.
The Bush circle is so self-enclosed and Bush himself so protected from dissenting views that they seem unaware of the long-term consequences of their policies. John Kerry is the best choice in this election.