Evidently the rabid Chinu survived:) Kerry watch:Advisers Urge Kerry to Flex Power in Senate and Party
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
New York Times
Published: November 6, 2004
Still reeling from his loss to President Bush on Tuesday, Senator John Kerry is being urged by top advisers and friends to take a high-profile role as the Democratic Party grapples with issues like selecting its next chairman and shaping its identity and course.
Unlike Al Gore, who made a tortured exit from the public stage after his loss to Mr. Bush four years ago, Mr. Kerry has a Senate seat to return to and is under no pressure to disappear from view for the sake of national unity and the legitimacy of the presidency, his advisers say. They argue that his continuing presence in the Senate gives him a natural role in determining how Democrats deal with the White House.
"If President Bush indeed wants to earn the support of people who supported Kerry, then he'll probably have to deal with Kerry," said Mike McCurry, a senior adviser to the Kerry campaign. "The question for Kerry is in some ways the same as for Bush: Does the president want to lead by establishing some bipartisan consensus in the center, or does he want to govern from the ideological right?
"Kerry would be the person that could help him accomplish that, but if not, there will be a hunger for someone to stand up to Bush."
Mr. Kerry's confidants pointed to his e-mail list of 2.6 million supporters - which helped him raise more than $249 million, a record for a presidential challenger - as a major asset that Mr. Kerry could harness to project his influence well beyond the Senate chamber, and not just in financial terms. They said one option would be to set up a new organization the way Howard Dean did with his political action group, Democracy for America, after his defeat in the Democratic primaries.
"All those people are looking for guidance," said David Thorne, Mr. Kerry's best friend, who also oversaw the campaign's Internet operation. "Will they respond, and what do you say, are questions, but no one has ever had anything like that. You have a constituency. What do you do? Can you keep that together, and keep speaking with them and working with them?"
Cameron Kerry, the senator's brother, said, "Fifty-five million people voted for him; they need a voice, and he can be their voice. The discussion of how best to do that is ongoing. He's certainly not going to just walk away and lick his wounds."
But others cautioned that Mr. Kerry had little time to waste. Senate Democrats are already lining up behind Senators Harry Reid of Nevada and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois as their new leaders. And with Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards and Dr. Dean in waiting as potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2008, Mr. Kerry is likely to have stiff competition for the party's helm.
Moreover, he will have to fend off those who argue that he is a poor choice for the party's public face, having failed to connect with many voters on bread-and-butter Democratic issues like jobs and health care, some Democratic strategists said.
"I doubt if any of the contenders would accede to Kerry as the head of the party," said Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, a liberal group. "He does have this added problem of, when you lost, it does put a tarnish on things.
"Plus, Democrats are pretty famous for eating their wounded. Hillary will have a significant feminist vote, Edwards will make a big play for the conservative side and the populists, I've heard that Bill Richardson is already starting his campaign, and then there's Dean. You'll see a lot of people out there who people will want to give a chance to and not Kerry."
Mr. Kerry's top advisers said they expected that as the titular head of the party the senator would have a good deal of influence over choosing a successor to Terry McAuliffe, the party's national chairman.
Others cautioned that only a sitting president typically gets to name the party leader and said that while Mr. Kerry would have a say, so would labor leaders, minority leaders and others, including the party's so-called Clinton wing. Among those already said to be lobbying for Mr. McAuliffe's job is Donna Brazile, who was Mr. Gore's campaign manager and is national chairwoman of the party's Voting Rights Institute.
Several Democratic strategists argued that the best role for Mr. Kerry outside the Senate would be as a forceful Democratic spokesman and critic on foreign affairs and national security, which are his policy areas of greatest comfort and which dominated the presidential campaign. |
