In The Northwest: Vietnam vet Kerry braves fire on White House trail
By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
Wednesday, July 2, 2003
TACOMA -- In harm's way long ago as a gunboat officer in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, Sen. John Kerry still has an instinct for danger as well as a seeming relish for being under fire.
The Democratic presidential candidate is receiving "incoming" from both sides of the political divide.
Kerry is taking shots from liberal supporters of Howard Dean, a suddenly formidable Democratic rival, for his Senate vote to authorize use of military force against Iraq.
He's receiving Republican sniper fire from such GOP outposts as the popular Drudge Report Web site over what he once said as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
"It's a mark of flattery. The White House has made clear I'm the one they worry about," said the lanky, athletic Kerry, hunched in a minivan late Sunday afternoon.
"I'm going to ask Americans to judge me by the fights I've picked," added Kerry, whose fights to win and hold his Massachusetts Senate seat have pitted him against the toughest foes the Bay State has to offer.
Actually, Americans will judge Kerry on whether he can emerge from the field and turn fractured Democrats into a disciplined, coherent alternative to President Bush.
With liberals and centrists vying for influence, the Democratic Party's nominee faces the challenge of herding cats and getting them to stop scratching each other.
As well, those in the party's left have developed an emotional, visceral and personal dislike of Bush. They mirror the right's Clinton-haters of the 1990s. Hatred is not, however, the stuff to win the White House against a well-liked incumbent.
"He (Kerry) is the one candidate in the race who can bring the Democratic Party together," Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said in introducing Kerry to a Sunday gathering.
Kerry was tiptoeing on Sunday, but did go into how liberals shoot themselves in the foot.
Exhibit A, he said, was the enormous amount of effort and money Democrats had to spend in the Northwest in 2000 "to pull people back from the (Ralph) Nader precipice." Invested elsewhere, it might have won the day for Al Gore.
He is impatient with Democratic oratory about the "stolen" election. "Stop crying in your teacups," he told one audience. "It isn't going to change. Get over it."
As well, Kerry is intent on erasing a big advantage that Bush currently enjoys going into the 2004 election, public perception that Republicans are strong on national security and Democrats are not.
"I bring to the party the ability to be strong, and right," Kerry said.
He makes no apologies for the vote last fall to give authorization for military action against Iraq. "My vote was the right vote," he argued. "Saddam Hussein had to be held accountable for disarming."
He is, however, highly critical of what has happened since the war -- even referring to himself in the third person. "John Kerry was one of the loudest voices saying the challenge was not just winning the war, but winning the peace," he said. "George Bush and his crew clearly had no postwar plan for waging peace in Iraq."
If Kerry needed to witness the challenge from party ideologues, he got an earful at Sunday night's Democratic dinner here.
In florid oratory, reminiscent of the British Labor Party when it was losing elections, Rep. Jim McDermott called for his party to "reach out to the left." McDermott also reiterated anti-Bush remarks he made in Baghdad. "I said this guy will lie to us to take us into war," he shouted.
The moderate Adam Smith did not join McDermott on the dais.
Kerry tried to bridge the gap with oratory that looked ahead, localizing his remarks to pledge help for Boeing in its competition with Airbus.
"I will move mountains to help the workers of the state of Washington," he cried. "George Bush won't lift a finger."
He touted a health plan designed to control catastrophic costs, while bringing health insurance to 27 million Americans. Kerry would give Americans the option of joining the same health plan as members of Congress and the president.
Kerry came across as a kind of Dick Cheney-in-reverse on energy policy. He wants to get 20 percent of America's energy supply from conservation and renewable energy sources by 2020. Of U.S. dependence on foreign oil, he declared: "We can't drill our way out of it. We need to invent our way out of it."
He delivered a Kennedyesque appeal for national service, beginning with community activities as a condition of high school graduation. Kerry would have Uncle Sam pay in-state college tuition for those who complete two years of public service.
But the mountain that Democrats have to climb -- the issue of national strength -- is never far away in a Kerry stump speech.
"They (Republicans) are betting that because of national security, they can just run him (Bush) as commander in chief," he cried. "Well, I am the only one in this race who has worn the uniform of this nation for four years and fought in a war."
Howard Dean's campaign may have hit the ground running. But Democrats at the dinner repeatedly stood to cheer Kerry.
"It's the first home run hit at a Democratic gathering in some time," said Jon Parkinson, a Boeing retiree.
Asked if he is coming off the fence, Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., replied: "Not yet, but I'm very impressed."
"Kerry has vigah," added Inslee, using the pronunciation for "vigor" made famous by that other son of Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy.
In the late 1960s, McChord Air Force Base was Kerry's departure point for Vietnam. It was fitting that Tacoma would be the launching point for Kerry's presidential campaign in Washington.
A windsurfer in private life, Kerry wants to visit the Columbia River Gorge during his Northwest campaigning. Riding a board will come as a relief from the political balancing act he must perform.
P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com
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