Benchwarmer
"I just don't think I've heard too many folks, if any, point out that he really hasn't stood out in the Senate," says Capitol Strategies PR president Cheri Jacobus, who provides us her timely take on the Senate accomplishments, whatever they may be, of likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry.
"There's so much focus on his military service, but what about his Senate service?" she asks.
So Ms. Jacobus, a Capitol Hill veteran who has orchestrated numerous Republican congressional campaigns, undertook two decades' worth of legislative research to come up with a title she considers befitting of Mr. Kerry: "The Benchwarmer from Massachusetts."
"As kids, when my siblings and I were torn between visions of greatness and fear of failure, my father would tell us that in sports and in life, 'The only way to avoid making mistakes is to stay on the bench and never get in the game,' " she says.
Mr. Kerry, according to the campaign strategist, is in desperate need of a "sit-down" with her dad.
"In his nearly two decades as a United States senator, John Kerry has not stood out as a leader on any key issue," Ms. Jacobus finds. "There are pieces of landmark legislation — some we like and some we don't like, but at least we know about them — from senators who ... left their mark because they left the bench and got in the game.
"So where is the legislative legacy of Sen. John Kerry?" she wonders. "Absent are the stories of the pain, the glory, the blood, sweat and tears from a Sen. Kerry dedicated to an issue close to his heart that he believed in with every cell of his being. Lore of this nature is Washington's version of the stories of sports legends." |
