Hard to pull for Kerry-"Somebody who wants to be president ought to keep their word."
And here's what Kerry said: "Somebody who wants to be president ought to keep their word. I think it goes to the core of whether you are a different politician or a politician of your word or what you are."
Pretend, for a moment, that Kerry was talking in clear English, which is something of a stretch these days,
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So let's go back to 1996, to Kerry's reelection campaign against then-Governor Bill Weld, specifically to the night Weld met Kerry at the senator's wife's Beacon Hill mansion. They finalized an unprecedented agreement to limit advertising spending to $5 million apiece, and to limit the use of personal funds in the campaign to $500,000 apiece.
Good government types hailed the agreement as a major breakthrough. Kerry and Weld basked in the plaudits of editorialists the nation over. Kerry described the pact as "a model for campaign reform across the country."
But a funny thing happened on the way to Election Day. Kerry didn't just violate the deal, he pulverized it. Running out of money in the waning days of October, Kerry mortgaged and remortgaged the Louisburg Square house, ultimately pouring $1.7 million in personal funds into his campaign. For those of you keeping track at home, that's $1.2 million more than the agreement allowed.
As he made a mockery of the pact, he did something else distinctly distasteful. He accused Weld of violating the agreement, a charge that seemed specious at best, an outright lie at worst.
At issue was a discount Weld received from the standard fee his media consultant would reap from all ad spending. It allowed Weld to buy about $400,000 more in ads for his $5 million. Every good campaign negotiates a discount, and the written agreement did not preclude them. Kerry claimed it was a violation of a rule that, well, was never written down.
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