Kennedy gives Kerry campaign a lift in Iowa

By Patrick Healy, Globe Staff, 9/28/2003

WATERLOO, Iowa -- Twenty-three years after Iowans helped derail his presidential ambitions, Senator Edward M. Kennedy roared back into the state yesterday to add a little liberal fire to John F. Kerry's campaign for the White House.

And with Kennedy standing by his side, Kerry delivered tough attacks on President Bush, charging that the war in Iraq has become a "quagmire" and calling on Bush to reimburse the federal treasury for his cinematic visit to an aircraft carrier in May.

The Kennedy-Kerry star turn sent Democratic audiences into a fever pitch and reinforced a belief among some Kerry strategists that Kennedy may be their best hope for shoring up Kerry's left flank against former Vermont governor Howard Dean, one of Kerry's nine rivals for the Democratic nomination.

Dean is quickly becoming the burr in Kennedy's side that Kerry himself was in the 1980s and '90s, when the junior Massachusetts senator challenged Democratic priorities on public education and health care that were close to Kennedy's heart. Now Dean is the skeptic, attacking Medicare, the Patients' Bill of Rights, and education reform, all issues closely identified with Kennedy, while Kerry seems to have reconciled with Kennedy.

"The hard slogging on issues that make a difference -- I've seen John there. Howard has his own experience," Kennedy said in an interview, quickly turning the subject back to policy. "HMO reform, Patients' Bill of Rights -- these are big important issues. . . . I've worked with John over a long period of time, and I can relate my experiences with him as a leader." Kerry aides say the senior senator was eager to campaign in Iowa, earlier than the Kerry campaign had planned, because he felt the case for traditional Democratic values needed to be made. Yesterday, recalling his debilitating loss to President Carter in the 1980 Iowa caucuses, Kennedy joked that Iowans owed him a vote for his kinsman Kerry: "Are you going to make it up? Are you going to make up with me?"

Kennedy also is buttressing Kerry's attacks on another rival, retired general Wesley K. Clark, for once supporting Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Kennedy's references to his brothers, John, who defeated Nixon in 1960, and Robert, who sought the Democratic nomination but was assassinated in 1968, underscored Kerry's argument that Clark has dubious Democratic bona fides.

"Clark's job is to convince rank-and-file Democrats that he shares their core beliefs," Kennedy said. "That's what this process is about."

At rallies in Des Moines and Waterloo yesterday, Kerry hailed Kennedy as "the unquestioned, undisputed, absolute leader of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," a jab at a moniker Dean has adopted. And Kennedy hammered home that Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran drawn to foreign policy assignments, would not only be a strong leader on national security issues, but also has expertise on health care, the economy, and criminal justice -- matters that Clark has little experience with.

Kerry, meanwhile, promised as president to "lift us up out of this quagmire" in Iraq, and belittled Bush's recent speech at the United Nations as "an extraordinary disgrace." During a speech before veterans in Des Moines early yesterday, Kerry demanded that Bush pay the costs of his flashy landing aboard the USS Lincoln on May 1 to announce the end of major combat in Iraq.

Speaking at a predominantly black church yesterday, Kerry praised affirmative action in college admissions and other race-based policies that he once questioned and pledged that, as president, he would invite Kennedy to the White House to write a new law making catastrophic health insurance a "right" for all Americans.

The Kennedy-Kerry tensions are a thing of the past, both men say, but that doesn't mean the senior senator is quietly stepping offstage to give Kerry the spotlight. Kennedy was in full-throated, liberal lion mode yesterday, and he made Kerry look a little like a cub. Attending rallies in Des Moines, Waterloo, and Iowa City, Kerry stood frozen as Kennedy punched the air and roared and cajoled. By contrast, when it was Kerry's turn to speak, Kennedy sat a few feet away and looked into the distance, rising only five times to applaud the candidate, who called for broader health insurance and energy independence from the Middle East.

For all the gravitas that gives him a presidential sheen, Kerry doesn't seem to fire up hard-core Democrats the same way a Ted Kennedy, or for that matter, a Howard Dean, can. Kerry drew audiences in the hundreds yesterday, while Dean's crowds often number in the thousands.

Kennedy acknowleged Dean's impact on Democrats this season. "Dean has done an incredible job at energizing a very important new constituency," he said. "You have to give him credit for being a very significant figure in this whole prenomination period."

The road to Iowa was a famously rocky one for Kennedy and Kerry. As Kerry sought to make a name for himself in Washington soon after his election in 1984, Kennedy viewed him the same way that some senior Democrats today see first-term Senator John Edwards, another presidential aspirant in the 2004 race: A young man with keen ambition who charged into the spotlight before he had paid his dues in Congress.

Kennedy was the go-to man in Washington anytime Massachusetts had a need before the Senate, while Kerry, a former prosecutor, pursued high-profile roles investigating the Iran-Contra affair and international drug trafficking.

In the 1990s, the Kerry-Kennedy relationship was tested repeatedly as the junior senator used the bully pulpit to question Democratic ideals that were long identified with Kennedy. In one famous speech at Yale University, Kerry raised doubts about the fairness of affirmative action. After the Republicans took over Congress in 1994, Kerry said Democratic leaders had to shoulder some of the blame because of policy "screw-ups," such as President Clinton's health care bill, which Kennedy had helped shape. And in a speech in Boston, Kerry called for major reforms in public schools and for weakening seniority rights for teachers -- injecting himself into education issues that had been Kennedy's turf for decades and riling the teachers' unions that have been close allies of the senior senator.

But ever since Kerry won his third term in the Senate, beating back a tough challenge from former Governor William F. Weld, the two senators have sought ways to work more closely. Aides to both say they now enjoy a warm relationship, helped by the friendship shared by their wives.

Kennedy seemed to relish his return to Iowa, once a land of lost dreams for him. In the January 1980 caucuses, he stumbled so badly that even later primary wins in Pennsylvania, California, and New Jersey did not reenergize his campaign. Many Iowa Democrats found him too liberal despite his support for unions and farm interests.

Patrick Healy can be reached by e-mail at phealy@globe.com.