Conservative CWA Invites Kerry to Speak
by Chad Groening
July 26, 2004
(AgapePress) - Concerned Women for America, the nation's largest public policy women's organization is challenging Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to address its national convention this September. Senator and presidential hopeful John Kerry criticized President George W. Bush for not addressing the convention of the liberal National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). One of the Democratic candidate's comments was, "When you're the president, you need to talk with all the people."
But now Michael Bowman, CWA's director of state legislative relations, says the women's organization wants to see if Kerry is willing to accept the same standard. "We see so much hypocrisy in Washington," the CWA spokesman says. "If [Kerry is] going to attack the president for that, we're going to say, 'Fine -- we'd love to have you at our national convention.'"
If Kerry does speak at the convention, Bowman says CWA wants him to explain his flip-flopping over issues like abortion. CWA has invited both Kerry and President Bush to help celebrate the organization's 25th anniversary.
Although Bowman does not expect a response from either candidate for several weeks, he insists that both invitations are no joke. "We are serious," he says, "but at the same time we don't expect [Senator Kerry] to take the offer. We're exposing hypocrisy. We'll expose hypocrisy among anybody. And if he does come it's a sincere offer. We'll have him, we'll put him up there, we'll let him speak."
Since Kerry taunted Bush for not attending the liberal NAACP Convention, Bowman says CWA wants to see if the Massachusetts Senator is willing to express his views on abortion and other campaign issues to a very conservative audience.
