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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (227647)	3/12/2003 10:21:39 PM
From: JHP	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

ya look at what this dumb son of a bitch Kerry is gonna do now! Kerry's Southie snub no lucky charm by Wayne Woodlief Thursday, March 13, 2003 Have you heard the latest John Kerry joke? He's suing his doctors for malpractice. They didn't really remove his ``aloof gland'' (as Kerry had quipped they did at the time of his recent prostate surgery). Nope, Kerry's just as aloof as ever. Or so it must seem to a lot of Massachusetts pols whom he is dissing this coming weekend by skipping South Boston's annual St. Patrick's Day roast. He's snubbing the homefolks after gallivanting around the country raising money for his presidental campaign. It may be a smart, safety-first move for Kerry in the short run: Duck-and-cover and don't give any more attention than he has to the story that he's not really Irish (as he has allowed us to believe for years), after all. The Kerry campaign must be musing: It's not a big story with the national press now, let's not make it one by going to the roast. But in the long run, the incident could be one more example of a pattern of expediency and one more piece to the puzzle that's always haunted his political career: Who is this guy, really? What's he hiding from us? And it could be one major-league blown opportunity for Kerry to show he's a regular guy, ready to face the music and maybe even have a little fun at his own expense. To Democratic consultant Michael Goldman, it's a coin flip: ``You could defuse the story by going to the breakfast and making fun of yourself. Or you might just revive it as a national story by being there.'' Besides, why bother about offending a few hundred sweaty pols in Southie when you've just wrung about $1 million out of the Bay State glitterati last night at a posh party at the Boston Sheraton? Todd Domke, a Republican consultant, said, ``It's predictable that Kerry would avoid the breakfast and any chance that by being there the questions about his `lost Irish heritage' would get even bigger national play. ``He also doesn't want to get thrust into the midst of this [William] Bulger-[Mitt] Romney issue,'' Domke said. No, sir, no way does Long Jawn want to have reporters who cover the breakfast start asking him about the bitter feud between new Republican Gov. Romney and University of Massachusetts President Bulger. See, Long Jawn is way beyond that kind of stuff now. He's on to a higher plane, out raising funds in New York and California, playing on the presidential field; too powerful to get dragged down into a hissing match between a GOP governor and the politican brother of a guy on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. No good options there for an ambitious Democrat. So Kerry aims to play it safe this weekend. He'll be home resting at Louisburg Square on Saturday and Sunday, an aide said, after his hectic money-raising pace. Plenty of time for a St. Patrick's event next week in Manchester, N.H. Hey, the state with the first presidential primary trumps Southie anytime. But Romney will be in South Boston, seizing an opportunity. The governor will be walking right into Bulger's old Senate district, though Bulger stopped hosting the breakfasts or attending them after he left the Senate. Sen. John A. Hart Jr. (D-South Boston) carries on the emcee tradition now and said, ``Romney should be a star. He stole the show at the roast for [House Speaker Tom] Finneran at the Comedy Connection, was very self-deprecating.'' Maybe Romney won't be quite as clever or amusing as one of his wealthy Republican predecessors, former Gov. William Weld, was in 1991 at his first Southie St. Pat's breakfast: ``My ancestors arrived here with nothing but the shirt on their backs - and a couple of million pounds of gold,'' Weld quipped then. Weld knew how to zing Bulger and make him laugh at the same time, once hailing Bulger as ``the only man I know who never uses a steak knife but cuts his food with his tongue.'' But Romney should be funny enough and smart enough to do just fine. And he's not dissing a room full of Democrats as Kerry is. ``It exposes a weakness in Kerry's candidacy,'' Domke said, ``when he has to hide from so many politicians from his own state, including some who might be Kerry delegates in 2004.'' Wayne Woodlief is a member of the Boston Herald staff.