New Kerry: Same as old one
PEMBROKE, N.H.
JOHN KERRY is back in his own backyard. Everything is different, and everything is the same. Kerry returns to New England eyeing frontrunner status in the Democratic presidential primary race, compliments of a well-earned first-place finish in Iowa. The caucus victory gives him momentum and the high-profile media coverage that goes with it. Before the candidate arrived at a chili feed at Pembroke Academy, the local press interviewed James Carville, the big foot political analyst and behind-the-scenes Kerry guidance counselor.
Kerry's stump speech, filled with populist, anti-Bush sentiment, is now an amalgam of the message that once propelled ex-Vermont Governor and now ex-front-runner Howard Dean: "We need to turn this country around from the radical direction George W. Bush is taking it. . . . We don't have a broken government, we have a broken value system." Kerry pays homage to Harry Truman and health care; and the senator who voted for the Iraq War resolution now proclaims, "Never again will young Americans be held hostage to American dependence on oil in the Middle East." President Bush's war on terrorism and Iraq "is not making people safer," says Kerry, a soundbite that is not all that different from Dean's much-ridiculed remark that Saddam Hussein's capture did not make America safer.
He is not yet pushing up his shirtsleeves like Dean, but Kerry is shrugging out of his blue blazer, as he tells voters, "I don't want the word `politics' to get in the way of the truth we're talking about."
For good measure, he also talks about "two Americas," a theme used most effectively by John Edwards, the senator from North Carolina whose candidacy is also in revival after Iowa. When individuals in his audience relate the details of life on $32,000 a year, Kerry is suitably shocked when he talks about "this stunning reality" of haves and have-nots in America 2004. Shock, however, is not passion, and Kerry remains short on that. His Vietnam War experience remains the one truly passionate connection he has with the common man.
But in the new, post-Iowa political reality, less is more. The media decided Dean was too hot. He helped prove their case by roaring in defeat on caucus night like Ted Kennedy did on the stump for Kerry in Dubuque. For now, Kerry's dispassion is a plus. He projects calmness, dependability, and what New Englanders should recognize as a continuing willingness to take on whatever political persona he believes is necessary for victory at a given moment.
In anticipation of a long-considered presidential run, Kerry took deliberate steps over the years to shed the liberal New England label that is political poison in other parts of the country. In a speech at Yale University in 1992, he broke from standard liberal dogma by declaring affirmative action to be flawed. In 1995, he voted for a landmark welfare reform package at that the time was labeled "legislative child abuse" by Senator Edward M. Kennedy. In 1998, he gave another speech billed as a dramatic break with Democratic doctrine in which he proposed ending the teacher tenure system. His vote for the Iraq war resolution, which again put him at odds with Kennedy, is also viewed locally in terms of a desire to position himself as a centrist in a general election.
The positions may help in November if he is the Democratic party nominee. But, over the past six months, Dean pushed Kerry back to the rhetoric of the political left, and that's where he is right now in New Hampshire. He is outraged over a family that can't take showers or make lemonade because of a contaminated water supply. He is worried about 8 million latchkey children, the most unfair workplace he has ever witnessed, and companies that shift jobs to an overseas workforce. He advocates broadbased global cooperation to fight terrorism "on your behalf and on behalf of all humankind." His knowledge of intricate legislation and policy is impressive, if at times, eye-glazing.
On paper, Kerry was always the strongest Democratic contender. In Iowa, he breathed life into that impressive resume, and Iowa saw the candidate of experience and resolve he wanted them to see. Now he is back in his own backyard. That gives him a huge advantage on primary day but it also gives his opponents something of an opening.
New Hampshire knows Kerry very well, all that he is and all that he has been.
Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com.
