NYT: Advisers Urge Kerry to Flex Power in Senate and Party (Print ed.: Kerry is Urged to Use Power)

Still reeling from his loss to President Bush on Tuesday, Senator John Kerry is being urged by top advisers and friends to take a high-profile role as the Democratic Party grapples with issues like selecting its next chairman and shaping its identity and course.

Unlike Al Gore, who made a tortured exit from the public stage after his loss to Mr. Bush four years ago, Mr. Kerry has a Senate seat to return to and is under no pressure to disappear from view for the sake of national unity and the legitimacy of the presidency, his advisers say. They argue that his continuing presence in the Senate gives him a natural role in determining how Democrats deal with the White House.

"If President Bush indeed wants to earn the support of people who supported Kerry, then he'll probably have to deal with Kerry," said Mike McCurry, a senior adviser to the Kerry campaign. "The question for Kerry is in some ways the same as for Bush: Does the president want to lead by establishing some bipartisan consensus in the center, or does he want to govern from the ideological right?

"Kerry would be the person that could help him accomplish that, but if not, there will be a hunger for someone to stand up to Bush."

Mr. Kerry's confidants pointed to his e-mail list of 2.6 million supporters - which helped him raise more than $249 million, a record for a presidential challenger - as a major asset that Mr. Kerry could harness to project his influence well beyond the Senate chamber, and not just in financial terms. They said one option would be to set up a new organization the way Howard Dean did with his political action group, Democracy for America, after his defeat in the Democratic primaries.

"All those people are looking for guidance," said David Thorne, Mr. Kerry's best friend, who also oversaw the campaign's Internet operation. "Will they respond, and what do you say, are questions, but no one has ever had anything like that. You have a constituency. What do you do? Can you keep that together, and keep speaking with them and working with them?"

Cameron Kerry, the senator's brother, said, "Fifty-five million people voted for him; they need a voice, and he can be their voice. The discussion of how best to do that is ongoing. He's certainly not going to just walk away and lick his wounds."

But others cautioned that Mr. Kerry had little time to waste. Senate Democrats are already lining up behind Senators Harry Reid of Nevada and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois as their new leaders. And with Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards and Dr. Dean in waiting as potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2008, Mr. Kerry is likely to have stiff competition for the party's helm.

Moreover, he will have to fend off those who argue that he is a poor choice for the party's public face, having failed to connect with many voters on bread-and-butter Democratic issues like jobs and health care, some Democratic strategists said.

"I doubt if any of the contenders would accede to Kerry as the head of the party," said Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, a liberal group. "He does have this added problem of, when you lost, it does put a tarnish on things, even when you got the most votes of any losing candidate ever.

"Plus, Democrats are pretty famous for eating their wounded. Hillary will have a significant feminist vote, Edwards will make a big play for the conservative side and the populists, I've heard that Bill Richardson is already starting his campaign, and then there's Dean. You'll see a lot of people out there who people will want to give a chance to and not Kerry."

Mr. Kerry's top advisers said they expected that as the titular head of the party the senator would have a good deal of influence over choosing a successor to Terry McAuliffe, the party's national chairman.

Others cautioned that only a sitting president typically gets to name the party leader and said that while Mr. Kerry would have a say, so would labor leaders, minority leaders and others, including the party's so-called Clinton wing. Among those already said to be lobbying for Mr. McAuliffe's job is Donna Brazile, who was Mr. Gore's campaign manager and is national chairwoman of the party's Voting Rights Institute.

Several Democratic strategists argued that the best role for Mr. Kerry outside the Senate would be as a forceful Democratic spokesman and critic on foreign affairs and national security, which are his policy areas of greatest comfort and which dominated the presidential campaign.

"I never thought in my lifetime I'd see a Democrat run on a platform of strong national defense," said Jenny Backus, a Democratic consultant. "I think of Bush's as an unstable presidency. Democrats want to stabilize their country again, and John Kerry can help do that in offering a powerful countervailing voice to the Bush doctrine, or lack of a plan. He can become a coalition builder, with the McCains, Hagels and Lugars. And he understands Bush more than any other member of the Senate."

Mr. Kerry's focus on national security, as it turned out, hurt his efforts to break through to middle-class voters on pocketbook issues like jobs and health care, according to Democrats inside and outside of Mr. Kerry's campaign, who pointed to several reasons.

For one, they said Mr. Kerry was hamstrung in making his pitch on domestic policy as planned for the final weeks of the race, because events in Iraq - new casualties, missing explosives, or other fodder for attacks on Mr. Bush - constantly intervened.

"The central debate that happened every single day from Labor Day on was, do we want a domestic message, a foreign policy message, or do we do both?" said one campaign strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as criticizing his former colleagues or his boss. "Every day we'd have a plan going into that day, and every day we'd have to say, do we respond to the events that interfered with our plan, or do we not?''

"You'd go into Ohio, which lost a quarter of a million jobs, and there'd be 15 soldiers killed that morning in Iraq, and we'd planned to talk about the job losses," the strategist said. If Mr. Kerry said a few words in response to the day's casualties, "that's what the press is going to cover, and we'll never get our job message out. On the other hand, how can we give a speech and not talk about it? Every single day we had to face that dilemma."

But another major reason Mr. Kerry was unable to close the sale with middle-class voters, advisers said, was that the Bush-Cheney campaign succeeded - with Mr. Kerry's help - in making him seem somehow alien and too far removed from the lives of those voters to understand them.

"Partly it was his style, the way he looked, the way he talked, his wife, the windsurfing, the houses," said the former strategist, who like other campaign officials said the sum total played into the Republican caricature of Mr. Kerry as vaguely foreign. "So I don't think there was any one specific thing, but it was a series of gut things that made a difficult question for them even harder.''

"We tried to get his language pared down more, with simpler speeches, less statistics; we had him out hunting, we put him in a bar in Wisconsin to watch a football game; we tried to humanize him more for people," the strategist said. "But at the end of the day, what's probably most important in politics is, you want to be as authentic as you can.

"Gore crossed the line of being inauthentic and didn't pass the smell test. Kerry didn't cross that line, but people didn't authentically connect with him, either. People felt they could connect with Bush even if they didn't agree with him, and on the margins that matters."

For Mr. Kerry, and the party, there is an old lesson here worth relearning, the strategist said: "There has been and continues to be a common tendency of Democrats trying to reach people through their brains and Republicans through their hearts. And in politics, hearts win the day."

Gov. Richardson would, IMHO, have the best shot at winning in 2008. Hispanic, southeastern state, Gov.

HUSH! If they're inclined to nominate Hillary for President, LET THEM. Don't give them any GOOD ideas -- like nominating someone who might actually stand a chance of winning!

This story is unreal. The latest from the Alternative Universe.

Gore receded from the national limelight because of pressure not to undermine the "legitimacy of the presidency"?!

Bush will have to deal with Kerry, or else?!!

What the hell?

This reads like it was written by a child, who is naive about politics, or a Democrat shill. Who isn't.

Has JFnK signed the SF-180 yet?

We should never stop asking until he does.

"...Several Democratic strategists argued that the best role for Mr. Kerry outside the Senate would be as a forceful Democratic spokesman and critic on foreign affairs and national security, which are his policy areas of greatest comfort and which dominated the presidential campaign..."

Wait a minute! I'm sooooo confused!! All through the campaign, I thought the MSM told us the domestic issues were his strongest policy area!!?? Wasnt that why everyone said that the first debate, on foreign affairs and national security were Bush's strong point? Hmmmmmmmmm.

28 posted on 11/06/2004 7:07:29 AM PST by TEXOKIE (Father in Heaven, take command of America and her Mission, her leaders, her people, and her troops!)

"Mike McCurry still doesn't get it. Instead of "we have to find a way to work with Bush...to take part in his agenda" it's all about "we have to make him do things our way or we'll make sure nothing gets done at all". "

Geez, Didn't the Dems lose? Their crazy if they think they can get away with this. Oh, yeah! They ARE crazy!

I think the vets said it was over if Kerry lost and receded to Mass. to bother us no more (which included keeping his Senate seat that he bothers with when expedient).

I do think if he decided to assume a high profile leadership role the vets would decide they would need to continue speaking out.

Let's see....he spent twenty years in the Senate and never lead on anything....We know know that during the campaign he would call people to "ask" them what he should say about issues (even calling DON IMUS).

If Kerry "leads" in the Senate, it will be the first time in his life....oh,wait, that's right, he can call France and ask them what he should do in the Senate, and THEN lead.

"If President Bush indeed wants to earn the support of people who supported Kerry, then he'll probably have to deal with Kerry," said Mike McCurry.

Evan Bayh will chosen the President in Nov '08. I don't like it one bit, but he's it.

34 posted on 11/06/2004 7:10:03 AM PST by Aeronaut (This is no ordinary time. And George W. Bush is no ordinary leader." --George Pataki)

Kerry is a backbencher with an almost nonexistent legislative record. In twenty years he has less than 10 bills, which have his name on them as sponsor or co-sponsor. Kerry has not been a leader in the Senate and has been distant and aloof from his Dem colleagues. He is a show horse, not a work horse. The junior senator from Massachusetts has had his 15 minutes worth of fame. Let him go back to his dilettante senatorial lifestyle. The votes he received were anti-Bush, not pro-Kerry.

"Fifty-five million people voted for him; they need a voice, and he can be their voice. The discussion of how best to do that is ongoing. He's certainly not going to just walk away and lick his wounds."

Unfortunatly, unlike the president, Mr Kerry has not accumulated any political capital, and therefore has none to spend. It should also to be noted, that all the power in the world is useless without direction, and Sen. Kerry has clearly demonstrated that he has no guiding principal. Therefore his leadership will only leave the dems flip flopping in the political wind.

well to be honest.. there still is that matter of a billion dollars.. his wife has.. thats not chicken feed.. but if Kerry tries to make a play for national prominence.. this will only bring out all of the suppressed crap he has thus far avoided. Don't be surprised to see Kerry retire in essence from all but the veneer of serving in the Senate. Expect Mass to have a new Senator next time. This was the end of the Kerry story not another chapter. He has to decide if he wants it to be an expose with the certain humiliation he would receive or a denouement and a graceful exit with large speaking fees.

Kerry will go back to being a back bencher in the senate. He like his life that way. Not too much work, he could go off and enjoy his life of wealth and luxury. No, he's not going to take up the "reins of leadership" in the senate. His whole life was aimed toward the presidency. He will NEVER get that chance again. He'll go back to being the absentee senator from MA.

39 posted on 11/06/2004 7:57:00 AM PST by McGavin999 (George Soros just learned a very expensive lesson-America can't be bought.)

Absolutely. A Richardson/Clinton or Clinton/Richardson ticket in '08 would be unstoppable.

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This man just oozes power!