Candidates' offspring relish role
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Presidential candidates face an array of challenges on the campaign trail, from a schedule that drains them physically to brickbats from their rivals and ceaseless, white-hot media scrutiny. It is rare, though, that they have to deal with an apparent pass from a high school teenager.
Vanessa Kerry, the 26-year-old daughter of Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, was confronted with that problem last week, one of the perils that accompanies the surrogate campaigner job she and several other children of the Democratic contenders are undertaking as part of the 2004 presidential race.
In the case of the younger Kerry, she was at Manchester's Central High School when a seemingly smitten student asked -- via a teacher -- if she had a boyfriend. The student then summoned the gumption to ask himself what type of movies she prefers.
"I don't like horror movies," Kerry replied. "Neither do I," quipped the student, triggering laughter among his classmates and turning Kerry red with embarrassment.
As with the other children, including Rebecca Lieberman, daughter of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, and Chrissy Gephardt, daughter of Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, Vanessa Kerry can offer an audience an intimate perspective of a candidate, far deeper than a campaign position paper or television sound bite. At the same time, the children share an emotional connection to the candidates that makes criticism difficult to endure, and a profile that can elevate any campaign missteps from the society column to the front page.
"If you really agree with the issues and points of debate that your parent is espousing, then it makes it a lot easier to get through whatever emotional strain might come from being in an otherwise uncomfortable setting," said Karenna Gore Schiff, who as a 28-year-old campaigned for her father, Democrat Al Gore, during the 2000 presidential campaign.
Schiff's high-profile role -- not only as a surrogate campaigner but a top-level adviser -- was not a typical one among political children. Many, including Chelsea Clinton, the only child of former President Bill Clinton, and Barbara and Jenna Bush, the twin daughters of President Bush, prefer to remain in the background, fearful of losing their privacy. Chrissy Gephardt's younger sister, Kate, is avoiding the campaign trail, eager to remain focused on her job as a school teacher.
Other political children, including the current president himself, are willing to step into the spotlight. George W. Bush served as a paid adviser for the 1988 presidential campaign of his father, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush. Chrissy Gephardt's other sibling, older brother Matt, has also taken a leave from his job as a software developer to campaign for his father. Anne Dean interned this summer in the campaign headquarters for her father, former Vermont governor Howard Dean, before heading back to her sophomore year at Yale University.
While the candidates' wives, siblings, and close friends are also serving as surrogates in the 2004 campaign, it is the children who fill a special role -- and share a unique bond.
Vanessa Kerry has taken a four-month leave from her studies at Harvard Medical School to work on her father's campaign. The younger of the senator's two daughters, she recalled speaking recently with Rebecca Lieberman before they both addressed an abortion rights group in New Hampshire. The two struck up a friendship despite some harsh exchanges between their fathers in debates this fall.
Kerry, 26, says she remembers thinking it would be more fun to "go get a beer" with the 34-year-old Lieberman than to compete with her politically.
Lieberman, a lawyer by training, is taking a leave from the nonprofit voting group she started following the 2000 election. Earlier this year, she got a bitter lesson in presidential politics when she and her brother were criticized for drawing $100,000 salaries from the cash-strapped campaign. They each ended up taking 20 percent paycuts amid a staff shakeup.
"It's not a hardship at all," Lieberman said after speaking to students at St. Anselm College's New Hampshire Institute of Politics. "One of the best things, actually, is we're all working on this together. . . . Sharing this experience is really wonderful."
Chrissy Gephardt's involvement, meanwhile, is a reversal from the isolation she sought when her father last ran for president in 1988.
"I sort of had that adolescent-bad attitude thing going. I didn't want to have anything to do with my parents," she recalled.
Gephardt, who is now 30, has outgrown her teenage funk.
"I want people to know he's a good, decent father," she said as she stood at Manchester International Airport, en route to an appearance in New York after a two-day campaign swing through New Hampshire. "His heart is in the right place."
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.
