4 years later, Kerry is adjusting to a narrower stage
WALPOLE - It was a picture-perfect day, and US Senator John F. Kerry drove to this suburb to stand with town leaders and residents as they celebrated the expansion of a medical manufacturing plant.
To little notice, he and a few staffers arrived in a Town and Country minivan. He fixed his tie, charmed the crowd that had gathered under a tent on the factory parking lot, and wielded an oversized pair of scissors to cut a red ribbon.
Then, he was gone.
It was a routine familiar to almost any politician. But on the same day exactly four years earlier, Kerry was whisked by motorcade to Cincinnati's restored Union Terminal, where the national press corps, campaign aides, and Secret Service agents monitored his every move.
"When I'm president, America will once again stand up to our enemies without destroying or denying our best hopes here at home," Kerry pronounced before more than 600 people, comments that made the front page of newspapers from Dallas to Dayton.
This year, there are no marching bands, no campaign jet with his name emblazoned on the side, no huge crowds chanting, "Kerry! Kerry!" Running for a fifth Senate term after coming within 118,000 votes of the presidency, Kerry has a unique challenge before him: He has to put aside thoughts of what might have been and recollections of the status he briefly enjoyed, all while stoking up excitement to hold onto the job he has now.
"You'd be blind or idiotic not to acknowledge the big difference between being able to give a speech on a daily basis that the nation is listening to, and going out and talking to small groups of people," Kerry said last week in an interview as he shuttled between meetings on Capitol Hill.
His first debate with President Bush in 2004 was seen by nearly 63 million people. His first and only debate with his primary opponent two weeks ago - a debate Kerry didn't seem eager to do - aired at 8:30 on a Sunday morning, and it lasted 19 minutes.
Previous unsuccessful presidential candidates, from George McGovern to Al Gore, have endured a similar transition. They are jolted from their dreams of sleeping in the White House to becoming presidential footnotes, whose photos are lined up in the They Also Ran Gallery, a shrine for losing candidates inside a bank in Norton, Kan.
"There's a circle of misery," Walter Mondale, a former vice president who joined the club in 1984, said in a telephone interview. "We're all racehorses. We want to win. We did everything we could think of that was honorable to get there, and it didn't happen."
Kerry easily defeated Gloucester attorney Edward O'Reilly last week in his first Democratic primary challenge since he won the seat in 1984. Kerry will now go up against Republican Jeff Beatty, a little-known candidate who has never held office and has been needling Kerry on his 2002 vote to authorize war in Iraq - the same issue that dogged his presidential run.
In Agawam last month, Kerry interrupted a bingo game to shake hands. Last weekend, he was in Peabody for the city's International Festival. About 75 people came to his victory party in Boston on the night of his primary win. It was held at an Irish pub, not a grand ballroom. His wife, Teresa, wasn't even there.
"It's a very difficult situation," said Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the author of "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success." "It reminds me a little bit about the silver medalists in the Olympics. A lot of them looked like they were devastated. But wow, what an honor to have even contended."
The closest parallel to Kerry's story is George McGovern's, who was defeated by Richard Nixon in 1972 and then in 1974 was stumping around South Dakota farms before his reelection to the Senate.
"It takes some sense of humility," McGovern said. "You realize you moved from the big leagues back to the local situation in politics. It requires a certain amount of humility to do that. But I'm glad that I did. My only regret is I didn't go for the big prize again."
Candidates who lost in the past described a three-step recovery process. First comes the shock of losing, not only the election but the multiple layers of people and activity that surrounded you. Second comes the despair over what to do next. Then comes motivation, a step where inspiration hits and a singular focus begins to remove some of the pain.
Mondale said he initially had trouble sleeping, and kept a large stack of books at his bedside that he would read in the middle of the night. Michael Dukakis, who lost the presidential race to George H. W. Bush in 1988, hopped on the Green Line days after his loss, happy to have the Massachusetts governor's office to return to as a distraction. He finished his term, but never ran for elected office again.
"I had been beaten largely because of my own mistakes," Dukakis said. " . . . It was not an easy period."
What most of the losing presidential candidates have in common is that they all threw themselves into a major cause, with great gusto. Gore, after retreating to Europe for several weeks and then dabbling in teaching, gave up public office to raise awareness about global climate change. Jimmy Carter became a world statesman. Gerald Ford concentrated on his presidential library.
Without a signature issue, at least not yet, Kerry insists that his focus has been the Senate.
"I feel at the top of my game, I really do," Kerry said last week, as he boarded the trolley beneath Capitol Hill on his way to a hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. "I wouldn't have decided to run if I didn't feel I had the energy and the focus to want to do this."
Still, he seems constantly reminded of his 2004 loss. His introductions always include that he was the Democratic presidential nominee. On the wall of his Senate office, along with Bruce Springsteen concert posters and a photo of Kerry and Billy Joel, is a framed cover of American Windsurfer magazine with the headline, "Senator John Kerry, The windsurfer who could be president."
On Thursday, a group of tourists stood in the corridors of the Capitol gawking at Kerry, then calling out his name.
"Hey!" Kerry said. "Where are you from?"
"Ohio," one of them said.
"A state I know all too well," replied Kerry. "There must be a little buyer's remorse out there."
Despite the reminders of 2004, Kerry said in the interview that he hasn't reached out to talk with other unsuccessful Democratic presidential nominees, and he insists that he's not part of any "circle of misery."
"It would be pretty lame if you kind of limp off and just lick your wounds and feel sorry for yourself," he said. "That's a pretty stupid waste of time. You wake up two years later, and say, 'Oh, [expletive], what did I do with that time?' Well, you know, why not just do something with it? . . . I just went back to work. Kept the fight going."
Kerry says his focus has been on global climate change, improving foreign relations, and expanding healthcare coverage. But he does not appear committed to spending his whole career in the Senate, as Senator Edward M. Kennedy did after his unsuccessful bid for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination.
"I don't know if I want to do it all my life," Kerry said. "I haven't made that decision." 