Old dog, new trick: Kennedy creates blog to help McCain

CAMP HILL -- John Kennedy, like with most subjects, has a strong opinion about the presidential election. The former state lawmaker thinks the country needs to relearn self-sacrifice for the benefit of society, and U.S. John McCain's time in a North Vietnamese prison camp proves he understands this principle, he said.

"So my choice was this," Kennedy said in his Camp Hill home, reclining in a plush couch next to a stack of Wall Street Journals. "Either I can get out an work for McCain, or I can send a check for McCain."

Neither satisfied, so he chose option C. Instead of lending his wealth to McCain, the 70-year-old decided -- with help from Web-savvy GOP strategist Jeff Coleman --  to use that money to create a Web site with his own blog -- John Kennedy's American Whistestop.

Named in part because of the railroad company he formed in 1965, the blog's goal is to help McCain with something he never runs short of -- opinions.

"I didn't want to wake up November 5 and feel like all I did was vote, particularly when Pennsylvania is so critical," Kennedy said.

The former muckraking lawmaker, who served from 1980 to 1988, has already made three entries to the blog. One of them describes his pleasure that Wal-Mart has begun sounding the alarm to its employees about a potential presidency of U.S. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Kennedy called it the store's "noble crusade."

"No one studies the economic winds and waves better than Wal-Mart," Kennedy wrote. "While the presidential campaigns dance with summer flings like Brittany, Paris and the captivating veepstakes sideshow, these guys are actually reading the campaign’s white papers on taxes, health care, energy and labor issues."

The point of these posts, he says, is to crack open the apathy that has enveloped much of America's business leaders and show them this election will have significant impact on their livelihoods.

As he wrote later in the same entry: "If you meet a payroll, pay health care and sign over big tax payments to the IRS, this election matters. It matters to you. Wal-Mart should expand its efforts and encourage their thousands of loyal suppliers to join the crusade."

Kennedy, who lobbied hard for reform in the Pennsylvania General Assembly while in office but was never successful, said he doesn't plan to write about state politics, at least not until the election ends.

Now he said he's hoping for feedback from his posts -- whether people agree or disagree with his positions. The point is to at least start that dialogue, and Kennedy said he knows the best place to hold that kind of discussion is the Internet.

"Although I'm ignorant of the dynamics of the Internet and iPods and all that -- it's the new deal," he said.