Kerry supporters -- would appreciate your thoughts on this

[IrateCitizen]

NOTE: I am not trying to "bash" your candidate in this thread, but this article highlights one of the major misgivings I have with Sen. Kerry as the Democratic candidate. For those of us who are undecided as of right now -- like myself -- how are we supposed to reconcile this? I have done activist work on trade issues and I was incensed at Kerry for his betrayal on this issue as cited in the article.

Kerry Makes Another Big-Issue Mistake
by John Nichols

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0930-09.htm

<SNIP>

Now Kerry is making an equally significant mistake. The issue is trade and, as with the war, Kerry is trying to talk a good line while putting himself on precisely the wrong side of the debate.

<SNIP>

The disturbing thing about Kerry's latest pronouncement is that he has made this mistake before.

Just last year, the Massachusetts senator tried to position himself as the leading Senate proponent of measures designed to preserve the ability of American states to protect workers, farmers, the environment and consumers in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement the Bush administration is crafting in closed-door negotiations with other countries in the western hemisphere. While Kerry sounded like a good player, he ended up breaking with fellow Democrats to back Bush's plan to establish a "fast track" process to negotiate the FTAA agreement.

The signals Kerry has sent on trade issues are deeply disturbing. He is starting to sound like 2000 Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore, who tried to talk a pro-worker line but consistently supported the free trade that has devastated the manufacturing and agricultural sectors of the U.S. economy. Gore's shakiness on trade issues caused many working people to cast their ballots for Ralph Nader, a fierce critic of the corporate free trade agenda. Even more working-class voters simply stayed home. They didn't see the point of choosing between a Republican who backed bad trade policies and a Democrat who backed bad trade policies.

<END OF EXCERPT>

The piece highlighted in bold is one of the biggest criticisms I have of the "Democratic Establishment" and was the catalyst for my leaving the Party from 1993-2000. Am I just tilting at windmills hoping for something better?