opinionjournal.com
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Meet John Kerry
He emerges from the primaries unscathed--but also unknown.
Thursday, March 4, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
Congratulations to Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee after rolling through Tuesday's primaries. If the election were held today, according to the polls, he'd occupy the White House next January.
But there are still eight months before November, time enough for voters to learn who this would-be world-leader really is. So far few Americans know much about Senator Kerry or his record, in part because he led such a charmed life through the primaries. Having wilted as the early front-runner while Howard Dean soared, he was able to duck under media radar until his victory in Iowa. A fragmented field and constricted primary calendar also helped him avoid scrutiny, while his final serious challenger, John Edwards, campaigned with the delicate zeal of someone angling to be Mr. Kerry's running mate or to compete with Hillary Clinton in 2008.
So while Mr. Kerry emerges from the primaries relatively unscathed, he also emerges largely unknown. Democrats have rallied to him as a 20-year Senator and war veteran with the stature to defeat a sitting President in the post-September 11 world. But despite that long public life, Mr. Kerry remains an opaque figure, difficult to pin down on issues and on what drives him other than political ambition.
One place to look for the real John Kerry is his extensive voting record. The National Journal, a center-left magazine, reports that Mr. Kerry had the most liberal such record in the entire Senate last year, to the left even of Ted Kennedy. There is no dishonor in this, and the country would benefit if a genuine left-right debate shook our politics out of its apparent 50-50 stalemate.
The question is whether Mr. Kerry really believes in what he voted for, or in anything else. He has long opposed the death penalty on principle, but for this campaign he made an exception for terrorists. He has long been a free-trader but this year adopted caveats that would doom future trade deals. He once endorsed a cut in the dividend tax but this year is denouncing President Bush's version as a "tax cut for the rich." He was one of 14 Senators to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act but now favors a constitutional amendment in Massachusetts banning gay marriage.
This--and much more--might be dismissed as normal political trimming, except that with the Clinton years and 9/11 we have learned the hard way that Presidential character matters. Whether voters agree with Mr. Bush's policies or not, they know where he stands. He is willing to take hard decisions and stick with them, as he has with Iraq and the tax-cutting that has helped the economy ride out some very heavy weather. Mr. Kerry will have to demonstrate similar conviction.
It is on foreign policy where the Democrat has the most to prove. His strategy so far has been to run on his Vietnam battle scars, surrounding himself with fellow veterans. But courage in battle is not the same as courage in office. In the latter, what matters are policies and the willingness on occasion to do what's necessary despite the polls. Little in Mr. Kerry's political career suggests that he has ever taken such a stand and stuck with it under pressure. Perhaps he will give us some examples in the coming months.
This promises to be the country's first Presidential campaign since 1988 in which foreign policy will be central. Mr. Kerry has been highly critical of Mr. Bush on the war on terror and Iraq, though only after supporting both in the Senate (as Mr. Dean liked to note). The country deserves to hear how he would handle them better than Mr. Bush has. Let's hope the Senator has more in mind than his favorite talking point of inviting in the United Nations--which is less a policy than an abdication.
We really do hope Mr. Kerry rises to the occasion. Much of the world, and certainly most on the American left, seem to believe that Mr. Bush's foreign policy is a "neo-con" aberration, something that will be repudiated if the President is defeated in November. We think it will prove more durable, but by all means let's have that debate. Americans have seen Mr. Bush's character and his vision. Now let's see Mr. Kerry unveil his. |
