Kerry campaigns, part 2:
The press liked Weld's ironic detachment, his self-mocking, candid style. He jumped into the Charles River fully clothed to celebrate the cleanup of this once polluted waterway. When the Legislature debated a law permitting the keeping of ferrets as pets, he declared, "A ferret in the Barcalounger is a slice of heaven." He told a radio audience that one of his daughters preferred Kerry and was working for him rather than her father.
Eager for season-long confrontations, the state's news media formed a consortium that bullied Weld and Kerry into agreeing to debate a horse-gagging eight times, each debate sponsored by a media outlet in the consortium. In private, Kerry complained about the number of debates the entire campaign, in marked contrast to his current desire to debate Bush eight times. Weld did us the considerable favor of monotonously limiting his pitch to crime, welfare and taxes. Kerry's argument was broader and more, uh, nuanced.
Kerry reminded voters that the affable Weld would be one more vote in the Senate to keep Jesse Helms head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Ironically, when President Clinton nominated Weld the following year for an ambassadorship to Mexico, Jesse Helms successfully blocked him.) Weld assisted in nationalizing his candidacy by calling Newt Gingrich, the unpopular speaker of the House, "Newtie," and by casually saying Gingrich was his "ideological soul mate."
Kerry and Weld agreed to a spending cap, but both violated it. Weld understated his advertising buys; Kerry put $1.7 million of his personal money into advertising. Together Kerry and Weld spent more than $20 million, the second-most spent on a Senate race in the country.
After Kerry also won a crucial endorsement from Massachusetts police unions, which undercut Weld's crime argument, it was third-rail time. Weld wisely commended Kerry for his military service, but David Warsh, then a columnist for the Boston Globe, wondered if Kerry's actions in Vietnam had constituted a war crime. After all, the Vietnamese sniper whom Kerry turned his boat into shore to chase had been wounded. The Doghunters knew what to do. Kerry's boat crew and retired Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, who had given Kerry his Silver Star, gathered at Boston's Charlestown Navy Yard to defend Kerry and recall his bravery. Kerry's crew members said the Vietnamese sniper had stopped and turned with a grenade launcher pointed at Kerry and his crew. Somebody had to do it, they said, and Kerry was in the lead.
At one of the last debates Weld, a former U.S. attorney, was criticizing Kerry for opposing the death penalty. Weld demanded that Kerry tell the mother of a slain police officer, seated in the audience, why her son's life was not as valuable as that of his killer, whose death Kerry opposed. (Never mind that Massachusetts didn't have a death penalty statute.) Kerry denounced the killer and said, "I know something about killing," in a grim reminder of his service in Vietnam. "I don't like killing. I don't think a state honors life by turning around and sanctioning killing." You could feel the gender gap growing and the race slipping away from Weld. He had gone a bridge too far. Kerry beat him by nearly eight points.
Fast-forward to the fall of 2003. Kerry, the early front-runner, has fallen badly behind Howard Dean in Iowa and New Hampshire. He fires his campaign manager, reconnects with his Boston advisors, moves his campaign to Iowa, mortgages his Beacon Hill mansion for $6 million, and brings trusty Michael Whouley to Iowa to direct a strong organization built by John Norris. Once again, what turns Kerry and his campaign around emotionally are Vietnam veterans. Surrounded by the Doghunters at every stop, Kerry begins speaking more simply, more concretely, more humanely. Many of the vets are real people with real problems, and like most other senators Kerry doesn't meet many people like them in Washington.
Hearing about Kerry's campaign on the radio, a former crewmate of Kerry's calls Kerry campaign headquarters. Jim Rassman, a Special Forces officer, explains how he had fallen overboard in a mine explosion while on Kerry's swift boat in the Mekong River. Kerry, wounded in his right arm, saw him in the water taking fire. He ran to the exposed bow, reached in, grabbed Rassman, and pulled him back onboard. Now a retired police officer and registered Republican, Rassman says he just wanted to thank Kerry.
Kerry's aides prepare a reunion in Des Moines -- a moment of comradeship that only veterans of combat can understand. Kerry embraces his fellow veteran, chokes back tears, and speaks privately for a moment with a man he had not seen in nearly a quarter century. He introduces his comrade in arms, and after Rassman thanks him, Kerry says he had done nothing but pull an injured man out of a river, something "anyone would have done."
No, they wouldn't. That's why we recognize the human exception known as heroism. Whatever humanity and passion John Kerry brings to public service flows from his experience as a Vietnam veteran. He believes that no one should be left behind. |
