Clinton offers snippets of praise for Kerry

WASHINGTON -- While Senator John F. Kerry hopes to get a boost from supportive talk by Bill Clinton during his book tour, the Democratic presidential candidate is mentioned mostly in passing in the former president's memoir, "My Life." But there is one "pull quote," to use a publishing term, that has Clinton paying Kerry some high compliments.

"I went to Boston for a fund-raiser for Senator John Kerry, who was up for reelection and would likely face a tough opponent in Governor Bill Weld," Clinton wrote about the 1996 Senate race in Massachusetts. "I had a good relationship with Weld, perhaps the most progressive of all the Republican governors, but I didn't want to lose Kerry in the Senate. He was one of the Senate's leading authorities on the environment and high technology. He had also devoted an extraordinary amount of time to the problem of youth violence, an issue he had cared about since his days as a prosecutor. Caring about an issue in which there are no votes today but which will have a big impact on the future is a very good quality in a politician."

The book index says that Kerry is cited on seven pages, including a reference to Kerry's fame as an antiwar protester in 1971 and his support of Clinton's move to normalize relations with Vietnam. As for Weld, Clinton later writes that then-Senator Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican, was holding up Weld's nomination to be US ambassador to Mexico, but he does not follow up to explain that Weld was denied the job.

Clinton's references to the senior senator from Massachusetts, Edward M. Kennedy, also are mostly in passing, including a mention that Kennedy and US Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri were the only two members of Congress to give him a typed "to do" list-- but Clinton does not provide details of a specific list.

Clinton also writes about one of his worst experiences involving a Massachusetts politician -- his 1988 convention speech nominating Governor Michael Dukakis as the Democratic presidential nominee. Clinton nearly ruined his national political profile by a delivering a lengthy speech best known for the applause he drew when finished by saying, "In closing . . ." Clinton wrote in his memoir that he, then governor of Arkansas, told Dukakis aides that "I could cut 25 percent of the speech, or 50 percent, or 75 percent, if they thought that would be better. A couple of hours later I called back to see what they wanted me to do. I was told to give it all. Mike wanted America to know him as I did."

Dukakis, reached yesterday by telephone, said, "That's true. We looked it over, it looked pretty good, and told him to go with it."

The response to the speech was so negative that "I was never so glad to get back home in my life," Clinton wrote.

A few months later, "I flew to Boston to see what I could do to help . . . I pleaded with the people in the campaign to hit back . . . but they never did it enough to suit me," Clinton wrote, concluding that the campaign of George H. W. Bush, portraying its rival as weak on crime, defined Dukakis "right out of the race."

Clinton, however, drew lessons from the Dukakis experience for his own presidential campaign. He secured the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination, and his staff set up a "war room" to respond quickly to every charge made by Bush's campaign.