`Hey, I think I should be senator,' " Kerry said. "You know, it was ballsy.
he began his comeback in early 1982, John F. Kerry found a political landscape as changed as he was by events of the previous 10 years.
Gone was the rock star aura of the 1972 congressional candidate who had railed against the Vietnam War. In the buttoned-down Reagan era, Kerry was now Mr. Mainstream, a downtown lawyer with a wife, two kids, and an expensive home in prestigious Chestnut Hill.
Kerry's political goals had changed too, at least for the short term. His sights once set on Congress and the hothouse of Washington politics, Kerry was entering the race for lieutenant governor, a post with few prescribed duties.
In a crowded Democratic primary contest that was receiving scant public notice, Kerry tried to stand out, not only as a crime-fighting former prosecutor with progressive credentials, but also as a champion of a nuclear weapons freeze. For a candidate seeking a job with little influence over state policy, never mind global disarmament, the posturing was quite a stretch.
But the Vietnam War, Kerry's signature issue in the past, had long since ended. His antiwar constituency's new rallying cry was opposition to the arms buildup in the continuing Cold War. Kerry let them know he was an ally.
The freeze never caught on as an issue in the lieutenant governor's race, however. Instead, the campaign's core issues, as Kerry described them at the time, were "competency, experience, and vision." For a man who a decade earlier had debated the morality of a war, the thematic dropoff couldn't have been much steeper.
But this was the level at which Kerry could reenter politics after 10 years on the sidelines. And it was his first statewide outing.
Primary night was a nailbiter. Kerry didn't declare victory until 3:30 in the morning, after nosing past runnerup Evelyn Murphy in late returns. In the November election, he was paired on the ticket with Michael S. Dukakis, the gubernatorial nominee. They won easily.
Victory, however, came at a cost. Kerry won his first election and lost his first wife. By mid-campaign, his marriage to Julia had fallen apart. Struggling with depression since 1980, she felt abandoned and had tired of being, in her words, "a political wife."
Kerry's stay in the lieutenant governor's office would be brief.
On Jan. 12, 1984, a year into his four-year term, Kerry was in Germany's Black Forest on an acid rain fact-finding trip when he received stunning news of an announcement that would be made later that day back in Boston -- illness was forcing Paul E. Tsongas to give up his seat in the US Senate.
"I was woken up at 3 in the morning and told Paul Tsongas was not running," Kerry remembers.
An incredible opportunity was at hand. "But it was tricky," said Kerry.
As a candidate, he had said he was not seeking the lieutenant governor's job as a political stepping-stone. "I was concerned that it would be viewed as not having learned the lessons [of 1972] and that it was premature," he said.
"One year into the lieutenant governor's office, to stand up and say `Hey, I think I should be senator,' " Kerry said. "You know, it was ballsy.
"But it was the right place for me in terms of the things that were my passions," he recalled. "The issue of war and peace was on the table again."
Two weeks later, Kerry jumped into the race.
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