Kerry grabs torch of Democrats' anger
COLUMBIA, S.C.
MARILYN STROTHCAMP, Cindy Brown, and Carol Hopkins had all been campaign volunteers for former Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt. Hopkins, 69, spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day writing Gephardt postcards to voters. Brown had gone to the most remote portions of northern Iowa, where she met people in rural poverty who did not have a telephone and whose refrigerators were bare.
"They were so angry, there was a 96-year-old woman who asked me to drive her to the polls," said Brown, 52. "My 21-year-old probably wouldn't even vote over the Internet. But that woman wanted change."
These women were also so angry at President Bush that they were willing to change on a dime for Kerry once Gephardt dropped out. Strothcamp, 58, had considered working for John Edwards because "he was young and seemed to have a head of steam." She went with John Kerry after deciding that Edwards's experience paled in comparison to Kerry's.
They were there to greet the throng that packed St. Louis Community College Wednesday at the first campaign stop for Kerry after his victory in the New Hampshire primary. Despite a prior affection that had them working for Gephardt in his 1988 presidential bid, they were excited about what they saw from Kerry.
The overflow crowd was so thick in the student center that at least half of the several hundred people were lucky if they got a glimpse of the candidate. Hopkins, who was helping at the door, said organizers had to turn away about 200 people. What they got for their time as sardines was a clearly charged Kerry, whose voice resounded despite a cracking, tinny sound system.
What Kerry got in return was applause that became louder and louder, nearly drowning out Kerry as he railed about how President Bush abandoned education, health care, and global warming. Saying he welcomes the chance to match his military service against that of Bush, Kerry's now patented, "We've got three words he can understand," provoked the crowd to join him, as it did in New Hampshire the night before: "Bring it on!"
Forgotten for the moment was that even as he was speaking, Bush reelection strategists were already signaling this week that they intend to tar Kerry as a Northern elitist who is more liberal than Ted Kennedy and who flip-flops about the invasion of Iraq.
"I really liked how he can call Bush on soldiering," Strothcamp said. Brown said, "He looks good, he smells good, and he's got a good handshake." Hopkins said Kerry impressed her as "having a plan."
Kerry could not have better visually planned his first foray into the first crush of multiple primaries and caucuses. Besides the fact that the event was packed, Kerry boasted support from former US senators Jean Carnahan and Thomas Eagleton, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, some firefighters, and some African-American ministers. For some onlookers, that added up to a candidate with an aura of inevitability about him.
"He reminds me of John Kennedy," said Helen Eufinger, a high school English teacher in her 50s. "He stands tall and straight. The way he talked about education reminded me of that Kennedy spirit."
"I will give Bush credit on his immediate response to 9/11, but now we're always on red alerts, orange alerts," said Bonnie Riverdahl, a realtor and freelance writer. "Whatever he's doing is not working." Pointing to Kerry, who shook hands around the stage for half an hour after his speech, Riverdahl said: "He's got integrity. He's got a brain."
Walter Boyle, 53, a physician, said he liked Howard Dean, but he was won over by Kerry. Boyle said Kerry "is a class act. He's got no skeletons in his closet."
For a candidate who was considered a skeleton only two weeks ago, such praise was meat on the bones. The buzz after the speech was that Kerry could carry the torch of Democratic anger to Washington, even for Missouri voters who had supported Gephardt. After the St. Louis event, Kerry flew to South Carolina, where yesterday he picked up the endorsement of a critical former Gephardt supporter, Representative Jim Clyburn, the state's top African-American politician.
"I'm not even sure anger is a word you can put on it," Clyburn told me last week in a phone call. "We're beyond anger. The day after the State of the Union address, the headline on the same page as the State of the Union was how South Carolina has lost jobs for the third consecutive year. A plant in Sumter just lost 400 jobs and sent the jobs to Mexico."
Clyburn, who said that up to 30 percent of African-American voters were still undecided in a state where such voters could make up to half of the Democratic turnout, said he picked Kerry because of his long experience. Yesterday the two hugged warmly as they toured Midlands Technical College in Columbia, which featured gleaming precision metal milling machines. They hugged warmly again at the official announcement of Clyburn's endorsement.
Kerry obviously hopes it was the beginning of being seen as trying to embrace the South, a region he has barely been in prior to this trip, even though he announced his candidacy in South Carolina.
As a joking reminder that Kerry still has some cultural learning to do, Kerry mentioned how he had gotten to know Clyburn over the years, to the point of going to a Clyburn fish fry and dancing late at night. Clyburn joked, "I wouldn't call that dancing." Kerry said, "For a white guy, I thought I showed some rhythm."
By next week, the country will know how many Democrats in South Carolina, Missouri, and five other states will dance with him.
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
