The Makeover: CAN JOHN KERRY MAKE PEOPLE LIKE HIM? ("I Am NOT A Shmuck!")

It is the comic beauty of presidential politics that someone like John Kerry, a Boston aristocrat and U.S. senator known for self-important statesmanship, is forced to spend his Friday night in this downtown Columbia municipal parking lot. Local Representative James Clyburn has assembled 200 people on the oil-stained first level of a multistory garage to gorge on greasy whitefish with Wonder Bread served on paper plates. R&B music blares, and, while the acoustics are horrendous, the beer-swilling crowd happily grooves as the deep fryer sizzles away. Wearing a light-blue cotton shirt tucked into khaki pants, Kerry glad-hands his way through the crowd, his six-foot-five-inch frame easily located by the head of thick salt-and-pepper hair that floats above the throng. His visit here, for the South Carolina Democratic Convention, is the first of many he's sure to pay to the state that will host the first Southern primary of the 2004 Democratic presidential campaign.

But there is intrigue afoot. North Carolina Senator John Edwards, one of Kerry's chief rivals for the 2004 nomination, has arrived, looking sharp and at ease in a red golf shirt. A buzz goes through the crowd. Edwards is the man of the moment, having just been dubbed "the next Bill Clinton" by The New Yorker and "a perfect politician" by Vanity Fair. In perfect form, he even managed to upstage Kerry's arrival in town that morning--thanks to a fortuitously timed story on the front page of the Columbia State "revealing" that Edwards is, in fact, a native South Carolinian (a fact he downplays back home).

Which is why Kerry fans are delighted to see the two men on stage together with Clyburn later in the event. As they stand side by side beneath a dreary exit sign, Kerry looms over Edwards by several inches. He also overwhelms his adversary rhetorically. After Edwards delivers some brief and subdued words to the crowd, Kerry whips them up with a furiously ideological stem-winder that makes Edwards grimace as if he were suffering a sudden migraine. Afterward there is much speculation that Edwards was irked at having to share the stage with Kerry, not least because of their striking height difference--a difference Kerry's backers love to dwell on.

It's a small, perhaps petty, triumph. But these days the Kerry camp will take whatever it can get. For, in a sense, Kerry is the anti-Edwards. Where Edwards has become the darling of the national media, Kerry can't seem to catch a break. His press clippings record 18 years of journalistic wisecracks about his ego, his looks, and his self-promotion. The word "aloof" comes up constantly--51 times in the same sentence as Kerry's name, according to a Nexis search. "He is widely derided as aloof and arrogant," The Boston Globe has said. "Kerry ... has been called brooding and aloof," informed USA Today in 1996. "Some critics call him aloof. One political observer characterizes him as 'a frozen piece of fish,'" CNN snickered that same year. Nor is this view limited to the media. "To be president, you've got to have charisma and personality, and I just don't see that in him," says one Democrat who has known Kerry for years. Moreover, whereas many strategists consider Edwards the party's best hope for carrying culturally conservative Southern states, Kerry is branded a Massachusetts liberal--a stuffy elitist who stands no chance of winning over Johnny Paycheck. "When you get right down to it, he's a liberal from Massachusetts," says a veteran Democratic consultant who admires Kerry. "The big question with Kerry--and nobody can answer it--is electability." Another Democratic strategist agrees: "I don't know if he's John Connally"--the former Texas governor who spent $11 million to win one GOP delegate in 1980--"or if he's real."

Several unbiased people who know Kerry well insist he's a stronger candidate than the CW suggests. He is, after all, a decorated Vietnam War hero, a prolific fund-raiser, and a proven campaigner. And while he may not be a bona fide moderate, his record tacks more to the center than a casual observer might assume. But Kerry's nightmare is that the "can't win" talk will become self-fulfilling. And with Democratic contenders engaged in a furious "invisible primary" for money, operatives, activists, and free media, he can't afford the derision and dismissals much longer.

So Kerry is attacking the frozen-fish factor head-on, launching an aggressive effort to reintroduce himself to the public as a centrist, a veteran, and, most importantly, an all-around likable guy. Don't call it a repackaging, his advisers say--they're just revealing the inner John. "We don't have to invent a person; we don't have to change a person. We have to reveal a person," says one top Kerry operative. And Kerry himself agrees. "I haven't really reached out to or met a lot of people in the press until the last couple of years," he says. "And I think people are now sort of having the opportunity to get to know John Kerry." Kerry's advisers are crossing their fingers that when people do, they will like what they see. It won't be easy. At the Columbia fish fry, a Democratic activist watched Kerry, plastic cup of cheap beer in hand, work the crowd. "It's the rebranding of John Kerry," he cracked. "That arrogant jerk you've heard so much about is really just a regular guy."

Kerry dutifully pretends to be worried about his reelection to the Senate this fall. But he has no serious opponent, and he's already drenched in 2004 sweat. Over the past year Kerry has traveled to every significant primary state. In just the first three months of this year he raised $1.2 million, leaving him with $3.2 million in the bank--more than any other prospective Democratic candidate. He has set up the first political action committee (PAC) of his 18-year Senate career. He has hired marquee fund-raisers and strategists, with the promise of even bigger names to come. And his staff makes little secret of his ambitions: In contrast to his prospective rivals, the people around Kerry don't challenge the premise of questions that refer to his candidacy in the present tense. "He's a busy bee out there," assesses Al Gore's 2000 campaign manager, Donna Brazile.

The very fact that Kerry is so obviously running for president is, to some, a perfect illustration of the character flaws that make it impossible for him to become president: a degree of personal manifest destiny and self-love rare even among politicians. Indeed, his biography suggests an almost lifelong grooming for power. A descendant of the plutocratic Forbes clan (Forbes is his middle name), he is the son of a diplomat who was stationed in Europe for much of Kerry's boyhood. He was schooled in Switzerland before going on to the elite prep school St. Paul's and then Yale. Even as a young man he had a reputation for intense ambition; in 1971 he was devastatingly lampooned in a "Doonesbury" comic that depicted him singing to strangers the virtues of a man named John Kerry--without revealing that he was John Kerry himself. Wealthy for most of his life, in 1995 Kerry married Teresa Heinz, the widow of Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz and heiress to a fortune of nearly half a billion dollars. And he evinces a distinctly self-indulgent streak. Kerry speeds around on a motorcycle and in a convertible, Rollerblades and wind surfs, and plays classical pieces and Broadway show tunes on his guitar. Feeling introspective two years ago, he told The Boston Globe that he might like to become an artist someday.

If the broad contours of Kerry's biography suggest vanity and opportunism, it's easy to find details that support that impression. As a young man he conspicuously signed his name "JFK." During his famous antiwar testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, Kerry seemed to affect a Kennedy-esque accent. Early in his career he had surgery on his chin--a medical procedure, he said; gossip columns called it a cosmetic adjustment. Kerry filmed some of his own combat exploits in Vietnam, a decision a friend explained to the Globe with the words, "John was thinking Camelot when he shot that film, absolutely." And perhaps most notoriously, the medals he threw onto the Capitol steps at an antiwar protest were later revealed not to have been his own, but those of other veterans. (Kerry's were in a desk drawer at home. He did, however, throw the ribbons that came with his medals and says he never claimed the other medals were his.) It's also hard not to notice, when visiting Kerry's office, that his computer-desktop image is a picture of, well, himself.

In the Senate, Kerry's detractors call him arrogant, hyperambitious, and overbearing. Kerry may often be the smartest man in the room, they say, but he feels the need to prove it with long-winded monologues. It hasn't helped that Kerry has preferred the high statesmanship of foreign policy to more mundane domestic affairs, and showy investigations--such as those into POW-MIAS in Vietnam and the BCCI banking scandal--to legislative grunt work. In provincial, ribald Boston, many local pols loathe Kerry's high-minded inattention to parochial issues and sensibilities. When Kerry showed up late at a traditional St. Patrick's Day political roast a few years ago, the master of ceremonies joked that Kerry had gotten "stuck in front of the mirror." "In that world you're either a backslapping pol, or you're aloof and arrogant," says Michael Meehan, a former longtime Kerry aide.

It is no exaggeration to say that Kerry has made ditching the latter label the primary focus of his early presidential campaign. In recent months he has sought to turn himself into the most accessible straight-talker since John McCain. When he attended the Florida state Democratic convention in April, for instance, Kerry stood out for his relentless schmoozing of reporters--which included an off-the-record dinner that was so well-attended that some reporters couldn't find seats. Kerry also pleases the media with sharper anti-Bushadministration sound bites than his more cautious presidential rivals. And he makes himself extremely easy to reach--in fact he's liable to hunt you down. When a TNR colleague left a message with Kerry's press office recently, the senator personally called him back a few minutes later--although the reporter hadn't even asked for an interview. And when Kerry does give interviews, rather than spout the stentorian bromides for which he has been known in the past, he is blunt and to the point--and quick to go off the record for the kind of juicy inside talk that thrills reporters.

I got a glimpse of the "new" Kerry in his "hideaway" office in the U.S. Capitol Building recently, where he enjoyed a lunch of Dean & DeLuca sushi. Offering contrition for his "old" ways seems to be a key part of Kerry's strategy. "When I first got into politics I was quite brash, and I made some mistakes," he admitted. "I didn't care enough about politics.... I think through the years I've been a very different person.... I think people who get to know me know I love to go out and hack around, have fun, laugh, and have a good time. I am very sensitive to the notion of not being highfalutin." In fact, Kerry is nothing if not self-aware about his problematic reputation. "I'm a tall guy, I've got a big shock of hair, I've got this angular sort of Yankeeish-looking face, and it's a serious sort of presence. And I think people look at that and say, 'Oh gee, he went to Yale, and he's got a lot of money,' and so they try to put a label on it."

At times he may be a little too self-aware. Like when Kerry wound up on a Capitol elevator with Senator Wayne Allard, a Republican from Colorado. The two men are hardly close friends, but when Allard stepped onto the elevator with another man (who turned out to be Allard's brother), Kerry was quick to whip up some banter. "How are ya, Wayne?" he asked, inquiring about Allard's reelection campaign and generally revving into high-bonhomie gear. When Allard introduced his brother, an accountant, Kerry was fast with a one-liner: "Not for Arthur Andersen, I hope!" As the men stepped off the elevator and headed down a hallway, Kerry walked between them, his long arms stretched across their backs, wisecracking all the way. After the men went their separate ways, Kerry looked pleased. "That," he said with a proud grin, "was an example of my 'aloofness.'"

The other major rap on Kerry is ideological--that he's an unreconstructed, Northeastern liberal in the Kennedy tradition. On several defining issues, Kerry is to the left of many of his potential Democratic rivals. He opposes the death penalty in nearly all cases; he has repeatedly backed tougher gun control; and he voted against the use of force against Iraq in 1991. And he is a hard-liner on the environment: Last month he led the charge to kill the Bush administration's plan to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and before that he unsuccessfully pushed for higher fuel-efficiency standards in the Senate energy bill.

But Kerry's record is more complex than his critics admit. He was a strong supporter of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings balanced-budget act, which demanded spending cuts to trim the deficit in 1985. ("That was heresy back in Massachusetts," he says.) In a 1992 speech at Yale, he infuriated African American leaders with a prescient warning that white resentment was jeopardizing affirmative action. When Republicans seized Congress in 1994, Kerry pronounced himself "delighted" by the shake-up. And in 1998 he delivered a memorable broadside against the American public education establishment in which he called for radical reforms of teacher certification and tenure and even flirted with vouchers. Says Will Marshall of the centrist Progressive Policy Institute, "I never saw him as an undiluted liberal."

Kerry's follow-through has sometimes been less convincing than his rhetoric, however. When his 1992 comments on race sparked a backlash from civil rights groups, he quickly retreated. (When I asked him about the subject, Kerry responded, "I support affirmative action. I support affirmative action," almost before I had finished the question.) And on education, Kerry has been noticeably quiet since his 1998 speech. He introduced a bipartisan reform bill a few months later, but the New Democrats leading the education reform push in the Senate--including Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh--thought it too weak and proceeded with their own legislation; Kerry's measure went nowhere. During last year's education reform debate, Kerry had a seat at the table at important New Democrat meetings, but his role was limited. "Perhaps he's been a little tougher in rhetoric than in substance," allows an influential New Democrat.

Ultimately, though, Kerry doesn't answer charges that he's an out-of-touch liberal with references to legislation; he answers them with Vietnam. For Kerry, the war is a kind of ideological silver bullet, one his supporters consider particularly valuable after September 11. After Republicans attacked Tom Daschle for allegedly questioning Bush's handling of the war on terrorism a few months ago, the Senate majority leader retreated. Kerry, however, escalated: "Let me be clear tonight to Senator [Trent] Lott and to Tom DeLay: One of the lessons that I learned in Vietnam--a war they did not have to endure--and one of the basic vows of commitment that I made to myself, was that if I ever reached a position of responsibility, I would never stop asking questions that make a democracy strong." When I asked Kerry whether he worries that Republicans might find a way to use that old footage of Michael Dukakis riding absurdly in a tank against him, he grew defiant. "If they want to put up an image of Mike Dukakis in a tank," Kerry replied, his eyes narrowing, "I'll put up an image of me on a boat in Vietnam."

And Vietnam isn't only an answer to Kerry's ideological vulnerabilities; it's an answer to his characterological ones as well: Out-of-touch, selfish rich kids didn't risk their lives in the jungles of Vietnam. Speaking before the South Carolina Democratic faithful in a dreary ballroom last month, Kerry introduced his former boatmate David Alston:

Apart from McCain, no other possible presidential candidate can tell a story like that. Nor will they be able to air campaign ads like the rough Kerry biography video I saw, which shows vivid footage of PT boats speeding through Vietnamese jungle rivers, as a narrator recounts tales of Kerry's heroism. The words "courage and character," which sound like a slogan we'll be hearing more of, were repeated several times. As South Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings put it, in a glowing introduction at the state party convention, "John Kerry volunteered for combat, while George W. got an 'in' to the National Guard and got lost down in Alabama for over a year."

Vietnam has also helped Kerry bond with McCain, whose kind words never hurt anyone accused of effeteness. McCain has been helpfully pumping up Kerry to reporters of late, most recently by blurting out, "John Kerry for president," at a Capitol Hill luncheon. Kerry and McCain grew close while working together on the select committee investigating pow-mias in 1992. "John Kerry handled the chairmanship of that committee with tremendous skill and sensitivity," McCain says. "He did, in the view of one and all, a not grandstanding or self-aggrandizing job.... I think he would seriously be viewed in the top tier [of presidential candidates] for a whole variety of reasons."

And there's reason to believe that, like McCain, Kerry will be able to use his comfort with veterans to cross ideological and cultural divides that other politicians can't. Indeed, it is in their company that he most effectively puts questions about his vanity and inauthenticity to rest. At a veterans' memorial event in Columbia last month, a crew of ragged-looking former soldiers turned out to lay a wreath at a Vietnam War memorial and to present Kerry with a framed poem written by one of their own. After the event, I encountered Steve Dock, a short, tattooed man with a potbelly and a long white ponytail, smoking a cigarette alone in the parking lot. Dock wore a camouflage t-shirt that read, "PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN" and a floppy green hat bearing the words "TUNNEL RAT." He seemed to me like a deeply jaded man, and if there's a type of veteran inclined to hate John Kerry for protesting the war, I thought he would be it. Instead, Dock told me that Kerry "spoke well" and had left him impressed. ("Just 'cause we're in the South don't mean we're all rednecks," he added.) As we were talking another veteran, by the name of Frank Bender, walked up. "You won't understand this," Bender said, "but when he received that poem, he got a look that we all understood. Senator McCain got that same look. You know he's the real deal."

So there may yet be hope for John Kerry. It's certainly likely that, after all, he will win the New Hampshire primary, thanks to his obvious geographic advantage--one enhanced by the fact that his reelection race this fall gives him an excuse to advertise heavily in the Boston media market, whose airwaves conveniently penetrate much of southern New Hampshire.

Kerry should also be well funded. Because he never accepted PAC money, he's spent years building a network of the small-dollar donors who will be critical under campaign finance reform. He has the benefit of a strong fund-raising team led by Robert Farmer, the legendary finance director of Dukakis's campaign. He has also signed up California venture capitalist Mark Gorenberg, who raised scads of Silicon Valley dollars for Bill Bradley in 2000 and pulled in $250,000 for Kerry in one weekend last year. And should it come down to it, there's always his wife's fortune.

And he will have top-tier political talent. He has already signed on Jim Jordan, a savvy strategist who now directs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and he is expected to land Michael Whouley, an old ally who served as Gore's national field director in 2000.

But good mechanics do not a victory make. Just ask Phil Gramm, another high-profile senator who cockily promised to raise $40 million in preparation for a 1996 White House run ("I have the most reliable friend you can have in American politics, and that is ready money," he liked to boast)--only to discover that no amount of money could sell voters on a homely, cranky Texas conservative. Gramm, however, never really tried to revise his image. And Kerry is engaged in a determined, even frantic, effort to do just that.

To wit: On the way to his office recently, Kerry was disembarking from a subway car that runs underneath the Capitol Building, when he spotted a slogan on the sweatshirt of the heavyset, young black woman driving the train. Though these conductors work all day in the presence of famous politicians, they rarely interact. Kerry, however, saw this cultural chasm as an opportunity to practice his charm skills. "Viva La Diva!" he boomed, pronouncing each word on the sweatshirt as if for the first time. "Are you a 'diva'?" he asked. Apparently not sure what to say, the woman nodded her head. "You'll never live that down!" Kerry exclaimed triumphantly. As he walked away, he paused to reflect. "Diva," he mused. "That's the new deal, I guess." Whether John Kerry can become the new deal himself remains to be seen.

his six-foot-five-inch frame easily located by the head of thick salt-and-pepper hair that floats above the throng

Salt-and-pepper RUG!

MY wife first pointed it out. She said "There's enough hair there to make an Afghan Hound," and "Who ever heard of greying on the top and black around the temples?"

He's also got one of those phony parts there you can't see the scalp.

He's phony to the bone.

This bit really cracked me up since it so so obvious that Mr. Phony wants to be portrayed as "one of the Boys" now that he is trying to run for office. I particularly got a chuckle from this because Kerry was just like a goody-two shoes aloof guy named George that I knew in High School. Through most of High School, this jerk felt like he was too good for us and even gave us self-righteous lectures about us having "dirty mouths." Then one day George made a big show of sitting at the cafeteria table with us and trying to make small talk in a very painful way that was completely out of character for him. When George left one of the guys at the table wondered why the sudden character change in George. "He must be running for something," I replied. I was right. Shortly afterwards, George ran for school president (fortunately he lost).

At least he'll be able to bond well with Al Gore.

Don't call it a repackaging, his advisers say--they're just revealing the inner John.

My word these idiots haven't got a clue. A person is in politics for all those years and finally now the inner john is revealed?

Nevermind that "inner John" sounds like a special secluded room at dirty interstate toilet stop.

For, in a sense, Kerry is the anti-Edwards. Where Edwards has become the darling of the national media, Kerry can't seem to catch a break.

This line is actually the only interesting thing in the whole column. The media is admitting that it makes these generic, cookie-cutter Democrats into "darlings" by lavishing them with praise and media-attention. ("Oh, look, John Edwards is really from So. Carolina! How exciting!")

Imagine the media making a darling out of any Republican, like Dubya or Bob Dole. It never happens.

I believe that there have been rumors about Kerry having some bimbo moments of his own over the years.

This business about him having an extensive fundraising operation maybe true but the fact is that Mr. Theresa Heinz could have his wife write a check for the campaign.

Afterall didn't she get city hall to move a fire hydrant around the corner so she could park in front of her Beacon Hill townhouse.

I believe that there have been rumors about Kerry having some bimbo moments of his own over the years.

I was lurking at a Dem site not long ago, and someone posted a thread concerning the current "problem" with Kerry: he allegedly can't keep his hands off certain 'married women,' according to the posters discussing whatever reports they had read or heard. More than one poster knew about it. They think he's unelectable because of this problem, which they are sure will come out. I do not know if what they posted is true, but, I did read it there, and I am not the one who posted it!

This is the "War Hero" that introduces his boatmate and vividly recalls blasting around the river in a PT boat while the blasting twin 50-cal machine guns and getting riddled by auto weapons fire. This is the same John Kerry who can't recall a mission with Navy Seals that he was in command of that got into a fire fight that kiloled over a dozen women and children. He was awarded the Bronze Star for this mission. This is the same "War Hero" who forgets killing woman and children. What else will his conveniently forget as he runs for President.

Does this arrogant Limousine Liberal actually think he can sell his Gun Grabbing Socialism to those outside of Taxachussets?

As we get closer to 2004, the question will be whether President Bush's poll numbers will drive off all but the most arrogant Democrat politicians as rivals for the Democrat nomination. Kerry is in this for the long haul. He has the arrogance and the money to stay the course. And those two factors alone may make him the guy to beat in 2004.

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