INDIANAPOLIS  Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry was in Indianapolis to persuade several thousand African Methodist Episcopal Church leaders to put their faith in him, according to the Indianapolis Star.
Kerry quoted Scripture as he spoke to the AME world conference just hours after picking Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., to be his running mate this fall. Kerry also borrowed from Edwards' standard campaign stump speech, speaking of the "two Americas, the haves and the have-nots."
To close that gap, Kerry called for the kind of personal responsibility that conservatives have long clamored for. Kerry, however, said he would back up that rhetoric with the government programs and money that liberals say are needed to help people become self-reliant.
He promised to work toward a health care system that isn't "a privilege for the elected and connected and the wealthy." He called for an America in which more money is spent on early childhood and other education programs than on sending people to prison.
"Don't tell me that more African-Americans in prison than in college is the best that we can do," he said. "Don't tell us that unemployment's not a problem when we see that African-American unemployment is now above 10 percent, double the rate for whites in America."
And referring to the 2000 election, which so many of those in this AME audience felt was stolen from Democrat Al Gore with black voters wrongly kicked off the voting rolls, Kerry said: "Don't tell us that disenfranchising a million African-Americans and stealing their votes is the best we can do in America."
"This time, in 2004, I pledge to you not only will every vote count, but we are going to make sure that every vote is counted," he said.
Kerry also reached out to the kind of voters who think government is no substitute for parents and personal responsibility. "Children need to get their role models at home, not from the media," Kerry said. He brought some to their feet when he added: "Fathers need to show their sons that raising a baby, not making a baby, is what makes you a man."
In a release handed out to reporters, Kerry's campaign said his proposals  including job training and other opportunities for fathers  would be paid for by repealing tax cuts for those who make more than $200,000 a year and by instituting "pay as you go" spending caps in which new spending is accompanied by other reductions.
