It will be kind of interesting to take a look back at the one real close elections Kerry had for the US Senate, the one vs Rep GovWilliam Weld. Kerry. In a state so very liberal Democrat, and with Clinton running 20 pts ahead of Dole in Mass for the presidency, Kerry was in a very tough fight.
Also interseting is the fact that honesty, "ethical questions" even haunted Kerry back then.
John Kerry vs. Bill Weld
Angling for Undecideds
In the final days, Kerry and Weld head for the trenches.
By Tom Vannah and Rachel Brahinsky for the Advocate
In the closing stages of this year's U.S. Senate race, political consultants will tell you, both candidates must excel at the detailed mechanics of campaigning. With John Kerry and Bill Weld virtually tied in the polls, the race will come down to who has more lawn signs and bumper stickers and who is better organized to get out the vote -- GOTV in pol-speak.
The contest between two adroit and sophisticated politicians, men whose Ivy League bearing added a palpable degree of courtliness to Bay State politics this season, will be decided, as political consultant Tony Cignoli puts it, "in the trenches."
As far as political analysis goes, Cignoli and his colleagues aren't saying much that hasn't been said in other close races. And while there is ample truth in what they say, most strategists beg off the more important tactical questions: Which candidate has the better field operation? After a series of exhaustingly repetitive debates, after all the campaign ads and sound bites, which candidate has his organization more revved up?
On paper, each has distinct advantages. For Kerry, being a member of the state's dominant party would, in nearly any other race, give him a significant organizational edge. Given the overwhelming number of elected Democrats in Massachusetts, each one having already established a campaign network, Kerry's final push should be bolstered by thousands of die-hard Democrats, each willing to give up a few hours in the last week to hold signs, ring doorbells and work the phone banks. He should also be able to count on many union workers and public employees to hit the trenches.
Weld, being a sitting governor, has managed to mess with Kerry's base of grassroots workers, enlisting the support of several Democratic mayors throughout the commonwealth -- conservatives such as Chicopee Mayor Joe Chessey -- and inveigling others to limit their efforts for Kerry. Also, coming off a gubernatorial race in 1994 in which he pulled 70 percent of the vote statewide, Weld and his machine should be all warmed up for the closing kick.
From the visible evidence of grassroots activity, the candidates are running about even. Kerry and Weld signs are already sprouting so plentifully from lawns and adorning so many shop windows across the state that it's hard to believe either candidate is lacking in free advertising.
If there is any pattern to this sort of outward display of support, it is in location. Kerry signs are considerably more plentiful in the poor and working-class urban neighborhoods, around college campuses and in liberal enclaves such as Amherst and Cambridge, than they are in the suburbs and the newly affluent rural communities such as Hatfield and Rehoboth. There, in towns where white people live in big houses and drive luxury cars, Weld signs outnumber Kerry signs, sometimes significantly.
Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. In Longmeadow, one of the state's most affluent towns, Kerry and Weld are vastly but equally represented. Democrats there take great pride in their ability to stay even with the GOP, recognizing that the community's economic makeup should, by all rights, play to the party pushing an anti-tax, anti-welfare platform.
"We aren't going to let them beat us," said Candy Glazer, chairwoman of the Longmeadow Democratic Town Committee. "And we aren't going to let them win another vote for Newt Gingrich."
That's the part of the grassroots equation that is harder to see and nearly impossible to measure: the pride, the conviction, the sense of shared values.
When the Longmeadow Democrats met last week to map out their strategy for the last few weeks, members spoke about re-electing Kerry as if it were a moral imperative. Oddly enough, few of the members expect to receive direct or immediate personal benefits from Kerry. Rather, they fear the sort of society that Weld and his party are hell-bent to build. Economics is a big part of it. They are outraged by what they view as a relentless effort to cut spending for education and social services in order to give the wealthy and comfortably middle-class a tax break. But other issues count. They know which party has historically pushed for school prayer and against flag burning. They know who they want determining the makeup of the Supreme Court.
Of course, Weld has his fair share of true believers. They too are passionate. Just listen to them cheering Weld on during the debates when he talks about shrinking government, forcing welfare recipients to go to work and throwing drug felons in jail.
But Weld's grassroots campaign may be intoxicated on something more personally beneficial. These are people proud to vote, as the saying goes, "with their pocketbooks."
The over-riding issue for this group is "tax cuts," said Debbie Reavey, a volunteer at the Weld for Senate office in Springfield.
"We believe in Gov. Weld a lot. Our taxes are getting too high. I got involved because I want a tax cut."
Reavey said she believes Weld is drawing considerable grassroots support from people in their 40s, particularly members of two-worker families with kids to school and retirements to plan. "We just want a break," Reavey said.
These are the voters who have already made up their minds about John Kerry and Bill Weld. They know how they're going to vote, and no petty scandal, no attack ad, no wrangling over policy will turn them around. They've been locked in for months.
As such, both candidates for the U.S. Senate have been left angling for the undecideds, an ill-defined group that may include people who know a lot about the issues. Just as likely, it includes people who know John Kerry as a rich man who married into millions and Bill Weld as a rich man who jumps into polluted rivers. The undecideds may be young voters, new at the art of filtering through political rhetoric, or older voters who are tired of hearing the same old stuff.
Playing for fence-sitters is tough business. It requires intuition: What do they want to hear?
Since Kerry and Weld are pretty much locked into their positions on the issues, they don't have much room to maneuver. Their messages can't change. Rather, in subtle ways, they must play with the delivery of their messages. With the words they choose, the tone of their rhetoric, they play to the mood of the electorate. If the candidates think the public is looking for tough leadership, they act tough. If they think voters want a compassionate leader, they try to act compassionate.
Perhaps because his core supporters remain principally concerned about their own pocketbooks, Weld hasn't seemed particularly interested in appearing compassionate. Although he came into the race with a reputation for good humor and affability, he has increasingly bared his fangs at Kerry in the closing weeks of the campaign.
But Kerry has softened. His delivery has become less agitated, less defensive, even when recently charged with ethical misconduct dating back to the mid-'80s.
It is very likely that the tone and style of delivery have come increasingly to reflect the nature of the message.
Kerry talks at length about the challenges faced by the poor, the young, the elderly, the sick. He talks about the need to increase health care coverage for poor kids and about the need to preserve and expand financial aid for students. His themes express a degree of compassion -- he wants to protect us, keep us healthy, keep us in school.
If Weld shows any compassion, it's clearly in the form of tough love. He offers workfare, gutted social programs, downsized government and more prisons. In the Springfield debate, Weld showed nary a hint of compassion toward criminals: "When we catch the bad guys we've got to hammer them."
Although he has been hailed as populist -- a chummy, entertaining guy -- Weld stays rhetorically distant from the impact of his policies on the people of his state. Indeed, Weld rarely talks about people.
Consider the exchange over the minimum wage during the debate in Boston Monday night. During the Lincoln-Douglas portion, Kerry asked Weld how he could say he cared about working people and still oppose an increase in the minimum wage.
"The question is how you can profess to be for working people when you're for a gas tax, an income tax, when you criticize me for scaling back the income tax, scaling back the estate tax," Weld snapped. His tone mellowing, he went on: "I do believe in putting more money in the pocket of people earning low to medium wages. I think the preferable way to do it is through a refundable earned income tax credit rather than having the government dictate the minimum wage, where you run the risk of causing job loss." Weld accused Kerry of trying to "micro-manage" the economy.
Kerry's response was clever, both as an argument and as a way of showing empathy for the people behind the policy.
"You talk about not micro-managing. Micro-managing? You're going to put the government in charge of handing a check to people instead of allowing them to go to work for a wage which permits them the dignity of earning their way out of poverty and the lower end. You want to make them dependent on a government check."
To succeed in the game of politics in 1996, a candidate needs to play it both ways. The game has surely warped Kerry's better liberal impulses. In addition to all his touchy-feely talk, for example, he has just as often touted his work for the federal crime bill that increased the number of cops on city streets, joining his opponent's tough-on-crime approach, rather than substantially challenging it.
And this summer, after years of negotiation, Kerry caved on welfare.
Kerry's vote for the Republican welfare reform bill hasn't exactly inspired his core supporters. While the vote shows him to be all too human -- moved by the passions of the times, frightened by the opposition, worried about keeping his job -- it was a clear bow to the power of the Republican Congress, and a cold shoulder to the country's neediest. Only Kerry's staunchest supporters believe that it would have been political suicide for Kerry to vote against the bill.
But Kerry has the luck of confronting a governor whose own draconian welfare bill passed a full year and a half before the federal bill. Here again, Weld's anti-welfare rhetoric has been chilling, never mentioning that real people are affected by his policies, never acknowledging the staggering disadvantages many people in this country face.
The dispassion Weld shows toward the poor reflects an inability to relate to the other people's pain. His critics suspect this is so because he has rarely experienced pain himself. In an effort to expose the little-rich-boy syndrome, reporters have searched long and hard for any sign that Weld has firsthand experience with suffering. They've come up empty.
Even when he's fed a chance to show another side to his happy-go-lucky persona, Weld muffs it. To a "have you suffered?" question during the Springfield debate, Weld sought refuge in humor: "I have had the misfortune of having a happy childhood and a happy adulthood." Surely, Weld could not have expected voters to respond with praise ("Congratulations, you really know how to live"), but his glib side-stepping of the question spoke volumes: Weld doesn't get it.
In answer to the same debate question, Kerry said that he struggled with his divorce and its effect on his children. He didn't get very specific. He didn't lay it on thick. But his answer hit the right chord: John Kerry is vulnerable, human.
Kerry could have -- probably should have -- said more about Vietnam, as he has in the past. He might have mentioned the nightmares he's had since. Without valorizing war, it is clear that his experience of hand-to-hand combat and later participation in the anti-war movement gave John Kerry some experience with pain. That he is able to discuss it is important.
That Weld is unable to recall any such experiences, even to pull opportunistically at heartstrings, should be deeply disturbing. When Weld has spoken about the war, his answers show his uncanny ability to remain unconcerned. While the nation struggled over Vietnam, Weld says he was studying Latin.
It will be remarkable if such a man has the ability to inspire passion in his troops, to move them to win in the trenches. |
