Posted on 01/20/2004 11:40:16 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON -- Is America ready to be led by another Massachusetts senator, a former Navy war hero with the initials "JFK," a rich, Catholic Bostonian with patrician looks and a glamorous wife, a forward-looking Democrat with a challenge to countrymen to be a part of something larger than themselves?
John Forbes Kerry, the three-term senator from Massachusetts, the much-decorated former gunboat captain in Vietnam, the aristocrat with the Boston brogue and the Mozambique-born heiress wife, thinks so.
But don't suggest to Kerry that he represents a chance for Democrats to return to Camelot or that he is trying to trade on the nostalgia most in his party still feel for JFK.
"It's just not appropriate, it's just not authentic. You've got to be who you are, and you've got to speak to your own times," Kerry said in an interview. "If there are similarities, it is for other people to discern them or to define them."
Still, it was hard not to draw comparisons to John F. Kennedy and his New Frontier last November as Kerry rolled out his campaign for the 2004 Democratic nomination for president, the job many believe he has coveted most of his life -- 58 years of privilege and ambition, yes, but also of sacrifice and suffering.
The roll-out included a lengthy profile in the New Yorker by Primary Colors author Joe Klein, an appearance on NBC's Meet The Press with Tim Russert, the official filing of papers creating an "exploratory committee" for his campaign, an economics speech to the City Club in Cleveland with space pioneer John Glenn in tow and an appearance on the popular radio talk show Imus In The Morning.
It all seemed so Kennedyesque, a sweeping stab at a new kind of politics amid growing signs that voters have had it with campaigns of pollsters, consultants and attack ads.
"I think we have to break the mold of this negative old politics ... and begin to talk ideas," he said.
But just in case ideas aren't enough, Kerry has signed up some of the best tacticians in the Democratic Party for his White House bid, including Jim Jordan, director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Robert Farmer, a legendary fund-raiser. He also is expected to land Michael Whouley, who served as Al Gore's national field director in 2000. And he has a seasoned communications chief, David Wade.
He also has $3.2 million in unspent campaign donations, more than any other prospective rival for the Democratic nomination and none of it from political action committees, a policy Kerry established at the beginning of his political career.
Kerry easily invokes Kennedy's name in explaining what he would like to accomplish as president, comparing his challenge to Americans to "engage in significant enterprises" to improve the country to Kennedy's goal of sending humans to the moon by the end of the 1960s.
"We have to go to the moon right here on Earth," Kerry said before ticking off his ideas about energy independence, education excellence, expanded health care, environmental advances and high-speed rail services.
Kerry not only was inspired by the New Frontier but became a Kennedy family regular -- dating Jacqueline Bouvier's half sister and getting to know JFK himself at the Bouvier mansion in Rhode Island.
It was not long after those days of Camelot that Kerry was first asked on national television if he wanted to be president of the United States. "No," the 27-year-old Kerry replied with a nervous chuckle to the question from 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer more than 30 years ago.
The answer now is "yes." And he is undeterred by the popularity President Bush has enjoyed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
While most Democrats have been timid about criticizing Bush's war tactics in Afghanistan, Kerry has been surprisingly slashing. "When given the opportunity to destroy al-Qaida, the president turned not to the best military in the history of man, but rather turned to Afghan warlords who only a week earlier were on the other side," he told a Democratic gathering in New York.
Kerry also has taken aim squarely at Bush's plan to cut taxes $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years, tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans.
"I have voted for tax breaks when appropriate, but I know the difference between something that makes economic sense and something that doesn't -- and the Bush tax cut doesn't make economic sense, and it's not fair," Kerry said.
Americans first met Kerry in 1971 when he appeared before a Senate committee as spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the group that had protested the war by tossing their medals and combat ribbons on the steps of the Capitol. Kerry asked the question that captured the country's growing disillusionment with the conflict in Southeast Asia: "How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?"
He was an instant celebrity, not only because of his eloquence and combat heroism -- he received three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star -- but because of his upper-class background, unusual among veterans of the Vietnam War: His father, Richard, was a diplomat, and his mother, Rosemary, was a member of the Boston Brahmin Forbes family, whose wealth was drawn primarily from massive land holdings on Cape Cod.
Kerry's first bid for political office was a disastrous campaign for Congress in 1972. He retreated to law school and served as a local prosecutor before being elected lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1982 on a ticket with Michael Dukakis, who would become the Democratic Party's presidential standard bearer four years later.
Kerry was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984 with the retirement of Paul Tsongas and was re-elected three times, the latest with no opposition last year.
He is left of center on several defining political issues. He opposes the death penalty (except for terrorists), has repeatedly backed tougher gun controls, voted against the use of force against Iraq in 1991 and has led the crusade for fuel-efficient standards for automobiles.
But he also has been a strong supporter of balanced-budget proposals, has challenged party orthodoxy on affirmative action and teachers unions, and has supported military excursions into Bosnia and, most recently, the effort to disarm Iraq.
Joshua Fitch Konrad?
"There were times at dinner parties when John would be very pompous, unable to control his impulse to make a speech," one acquaintance told the writer. "It was all slightly laughable, and Julia was one of those who laughed. She'd say things like, 'What the f--k did you just say?'"
Maybe he learned the "f" word from her....
I guess Lurch just never struck me as "patrician". And his wife is rather crass.
Becki
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