Iacocca for Kerry

And another one-time Bush supporter switches horses:

Four years after former Chrysler Corp. chairman Lee Iacocca cut ads supporting George W. Bush's election, he's switching alliances to presidential challenger John Kerry.

Iacocca decided to announce his endorsement in person at a Kerry speech today on creating high-tech industry jobs in Silicon Valley.

Iacocca, 79, gained a reputation as a champion of innovation within the automotive industry. He oversaw the development of the Ford Mustang in the 1960s and later the minivan and electric vehicles while at Chrysler Corp. He is the chairman and founder of EV Global Motors Co., a Los Angeles-based firm that designs electronic bicycles.

In a television ad that aired in Michigan during the 2000 campaign, Iacocca criticized Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore on automotive issues, contending that Gore's environmentally "extreme ideas" could cost autoworkers their jobs.

Iacocca retired as chairman of Chrysler Corp. in 1992. He was president of Ford Motor Co. before joining financially ailing Chrysler in 1978.

In prepared remarks, Kerry said today that the United States is losing its technological edge under President Bush's leadership, with the disappearance of 800,000 high-tech jobs and falling from 4th to 10th in the use of broadband. He said countries such as South Korea and Japan are deploying networks that are 20-50 times faster than what is available in the United States.

He vowed to create jobs in the high-tech industry through an investment of $30 billion raised by auctioning off broadcast airwaves.

"This technological revolution is the foundation of a 21st century economy," Kerry said. "But it's up to us to build on that foundation so that we can create and expand 21st century jobs. We won't get very far with a government that wants to stifle or ignore the creativity and entrepreneurship that will produce the next big idea: We need to encourage it and invest in it."

Three cheers for Lee Iacocca!

UPDATE: Oooh. And Ron Reagan doesn't like Shrub, either.

"We lied our way into the war," he said on CNN's "Larry King Live" on Wednesday, referring to allegations that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and direct connections to al-Qaida. "It's a terrible mistake, a terrible foreign policy error."

Reagan, 44, a vocal opponent of his father's conservative politics, said he would vote for anyone who could beat the current president.

Reagan also said he was angered over the administration's restriction of federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research.

"It's shameful," he said. "We're not talking about fetuses, human beings being killed. We're talking about collections of cells in a petri dish that are never ever going to be a human being."

Reagan said he expected his mother to continue to speak out in favor of stem cell research. Nancy Reagan has long argued that such work could lead to cures for a number of diseases like the Alzheimer's that afflicted her husband.

He said Nancy Reagan was doing "pretty well."

"I've got to hand it to her. She's 83 years old. She doesn't get around as well as she used to, a little glaucoma," he said. But, "She's a professional."

Yo, John Kerry - this here is what we call an "opportunity". Please answer the door, OK?

Posted by Charles Kuffner on June 24, 2004 to The making of the President | TrackBack