<<In answer to the last sentence of your query, if Kerry hadn't spoken out against the war he would have been a rising political star from an early age, the Swift Boat veterans would not be telling stories about how he didn't "deserve" his medals or purple hearts, and he would be far ahead in this election.>>
In playing alternative history, isn't it possible that without the antiwar movement, he would have been a nobody? It was the VVAW that launched him, that put him in both the Mass. and national spotlight. After that had happened, either he was done with the VVAW, or they were done with him.
This is from a very pro-Kerry article in the Boston Globe:
<<Kerry left the organization after about a year of participation and about five months after assuming a leadership role. Kerry says he quit partly to focus on a new organization that emphasized veterans' benefits; others say Kerry was forced out.
In fact, Kerry once again was thinking of running for the US House from Massachusetts. But unlike in 1970, when Kerry was barely known, the antiwar movement had turned him into a national figure and taught him how to campaign, how to organize, how to raise money, how to use the media, even how to debate on national television.
Kerry had battled the Viet Cong, the Nixon White House, and the extremes of the antiwar movement. Now all he had to do was persuade mostly working-class voters north of Boston to vote for him.>>
boston.com |
