Kerry criticizes McCain's VP pick

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- Republican presidential hopeful John McCain made a poor choice in picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, a leading Democrat says.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, said the 2008 GOP ticket offers the same policy direction as President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have chartered.

"With the choice of Governor Palin, it's now the third term of Bush-Cheney, because what he's done is he's chosen somebody who actually doesn't believe that climate change is man-made. He's chosen somebody who has zero -- zero -- experience in foreign policy," Kerry said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Meanwhile, Cindy McCain called her husband's choice the "perfect" running mate.

The Arizona senator Friday unexpectedly named Palin the GOP ticket's No. 2 slot.

"She's a reformer and she thinks outside the box the way my husband does," Cindy McCain said. "They think about what's best for the country. Washington is just quagmire of a mess right now. And that both of them have been serious reformers and the governor, particularly, where she's been in the state Alaska, what she's done, gone up against her own party, her own government."