And provides some excellent reasons for giving it to him.

It's impossible to cover a 23 year Senate career in five minutes, but the video provides more than enough reason to give Senator Kerry your vote. The Kerry-Feingold Amendment, which had little support when it was first presented, is now the Democratic position on Iraq withdrawal. Senator Kerry has been one of the Senate's strongest voices for veterans, small business owners and the environment, and against the destructive policies of the Bush administration.

What the Senator doesn't mention in the video is his long history of investigating government corruption, including his leadership on Iran-Contra and BCCI, which many who have studied the issues and followed the connections view as the most compelling reason for making sure he stays in Washington. The very reason corrupt Washington insiders have fought for decades to silence Senator Kerry's voice and influence is the precise reason he must stay there. We need someone in Washington who isn't afraid to speak truth to power, and Senator Kerry is the person who has been doing that since long before he was elected to the Senate, despite the risks and knowing the power of the opposition.

In his 1997 book, The New War, Senator Kerry wrote of the link between international crime and global terrorism and of how we need to approach the threats to our security and our freedom, using law enforcement and alliances with other nations. On the surface, looking back at the failed approach of the past eight years of George Bush, the book seems prescient, and I guess it is. But the fact is that it's based on years of investigating crime and an approach that isn't a matter of intuition, but of study and logic. It's the result of connecting the dots and coming to the right conclusion about how to fight a global war on terrorism.

The strongest case for John Kerry in 2004 is the same for his re-election today.

“There has never been a guy who has run for president who has, hands-on, known the kinds of substantive things he knows about the world of international crime, about banking and international bank regulation and finance, about the interconnectedness of the world finance system and how various intelligence agencies play into it. He is uniquely qualified.”

Kerry’s experience fighting the Washington establishment over BCCI also gave him a profound education in the workings of the insider Washington power and corruption that support corporate and organized crime and weaken the country’s ability to counter terrorism. He showed that he has what it takes to stand up to the big-money special interests that don’t want the system to change.

National security is a serious issue in this election, and we need to look at the threats to our nation both from the outside and the inside. This is not a time when we can afford to lose our strongest voice against government corruption and its global implications. This is not a time when we can afford to forget who has been right about how we need to fight terrorism all along.

That's why we need John Kerry.