I guess Al Sharpton didn’t get the memo from the Kerry/Edwards campaign that he was supposed to stay positive on the stump. Sharpton gave a fiery speech intended to answer George Bush’s overture to the Urban League earlier this month. After giving only a cursory mention to the ticket’s public policy aims, Sharpton aimed instead squarely at Bush. At one point, Sharpton screamed into the mike:
“Mr. President, read my lips — our vote is not for sale!”
Sure seems that way to me, Al … they’ve been sold out to the Democrats for decades. Sharpton even worked in a reference to reparations, which probably caused John Kerry to have kittens backstage.
Way to be uniters, guys …
UPDATE: CBS Market Watch has the prepared text of Sharpton’s address to the DNC tonight (via Drudge). If you watched him speak, you can see how far Sharpton drifted from the speech the Kerry/Edwards campaign vetted. None of the votes-for-sale theme was part of the original speech Sharpton submitted, including the “read my lips” reference, nor the statement that the black vote had been bought by the “blood of four little girls in Selma,” a nod to Spike Lee, who is in attendance.
Kerry apparently can’t keep his party on message, and the Bush bile-o-meter keeps on a-rising…