John Kerry: The contender -He's just a Massachusetts liberal

[papau]

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=498631

John Kerry: The contender -He's just a Massachusetts liberal. He lacks the common touch. He looks French. (He even speaks the lingo, dammit.) The dreaded Republican "opposition research" boys should have a field day with the Democratic presidential hopeful. One problem: he saved a man's life in battle

By Rupert Cornwell
07 March 2004


He's 6ft 4in tall, and if he grew a beard he would be a passable likeness of Abraham Lincoln. But towering though he is, John Forbes Kerry has spent most of his two decades in Congress in the shadow of others.<snip>

By American standards he is a man of the left who, according to theNational Journal, owns the most liberal voting record of all 100 senators. Soundbites may be an unavoidable staple of the campaign trail, but this JFK's forte is the rounded argument, the measured presentation of both sides of a case. The approach is fine in the self-important setting of the Senate, but - as Kerry learnt when his presidential bid almost collapsed last year - is a disaster on the campaign trail.<snip>

<snip>The answer lies in how Kerry handles those three apparent contradictions of his candidacy. First and foremost he must not let his opponents tar him as the liberal the Senate scorecard suggests. In fact his record is more centrist than it sounds. Second, the man who shies from soundbites must keep them coming - and not relapse into comfortable, numbing legislator-speak just because the polls put him few points ahead of the President. That proved almost fatal before; it would certainly be fatal now.

Which leads to his third and most important task: to remain a regular guy. Here Vietnam plays a vital role. The outwardly haughty Boston Brahmin once did what Texan good ole' boy George W never did: he saved a man's life in battle. Just before the Iowa caucuses, Jim Rassman, a retired Los Angeles policeman, told a Kerry rally how the young Navy lieutenant had dared withering enemy fire to pull him from the Bay Hap river on 13 March 1969. The two men tearfully embraced as only old battlefield buddies can. Guys don't come more regular than that. It was the most powerful single moment of the entire 2004 campaign so far, and it might yet help Kerry to the biggest prize of all.
6 March 2004 19:41

[Frances]

1. Good article

Thanks for the link

[sadiesworld]

2. Actually, Kerry has a fourth task...

he must not allow his opponents on the left to target him as a conservative.

[RC]

3. John Forbes Kerry is no JFK

We already have a JFK. Let's respect Kennedy's memory and not confuse the issue anymore than it already is..