Questioning Kerry's focus
He shows up for the filibuster in the Senate on the Medicare bill, but he skips out on the vote. He skips out on the debate in Iowa, but he shows up by remote. Is it any wonder that it is sometimes hard to tell whether Senator John F. Kerry is coming or going?
To be sure, Kerry's vote would not have reversed the 54-to-44 decision yesterday to provide limited prescription drug benefits to some seniors and billions of dollars in benefits to insurance and pharmaceutical firms. Had he stuck around, though, the junior senator from Massachusetts might have seen in action the kind of sustained "fight" he promises in his campaign rhetoric.
The vote was already lost when Senator Edward M. Kennedy rose to use the last five minutes at his disposal to thunder his opposition to the convoluted bill now on its way to President Bush's desk. But the floor was his, and the elderly were still confused about a measure that weighs more than the Manhattan phone book. The bill was a Trojan Horse, a stealth attempt to undercut Medicare, Kennedy warned; it would drive vulnerable seniors into "the cold arms of the HMOs." If Medicare could be privatized, Social Security would be next.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, Kennedy's Republican colleague, scoffed at such claims when he rose in rebuttal, but neither Hatch nor anyone else doubted Kennedy's passion about the need for comprehensive access to prescription drugs and health care. He has spent a career fighting for just that.
Kerry, on the other hand, gave the appearance this week of an over-eager understudy, hoping for a starring role in the Senate drama. He flew back to Washington from New Hampshire Sunday to join a planned filibuster against the bill. "Unfortunately, that means I will miss the debate in Iowa," he said. "But I think the people of Iowa will understand that the potential harm of this bill is worth the effort." When opponents failed to stop a vote on the bill, Kerry and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina joined the Democratic debate by remote satellite. Edwards, however, stayed around to vote against the bill.
As the Kerry campaign saw it, the Medicare battle had been lost on the procedural votes. He fought when it mattered, they believed; his vote was meaningless, because the victors had more than enough votes. (By that logic, Kerry should have skipped his nettlesome Iraq vote. He would have so much less to explain today.) Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut also skipped the vote, Kerry aides point out, failing to note the tepidness of his opposition. A week ago at a debate in Bedford, N.H., Lieberman was uncommitted on the Medicare measure.
There is something to Kerry's process-oriented, Beltway view of politics. Senators routinely skip votes when the leadership concludes they would not affect the outcome. Even Kennedy excused Kerry's absence. "John Kerry was there when the vote mattered," he said. "We nearly stopped this misguided bill in its tracks, and John was there fighting hard against it." But most voters do not live inside the Beltway. When they read that this is a "historic" vote, they might wonder why a senator and presidential candidate would choose not to record his opposition.
Ted Kennedy was one of only three still sitting senators who were in the same chamber on July 28, 1965, when the Senate approved Medicare, or the Social Security Amendments of 1965, as it was known. Democratic Senators Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii voted then with Kennedy to provide health care for seniors, just as they voted with him yesterday against this giveaway to Republican corporate campaign contributors.
History also records that the Senate's public galleries were packed with cheering seniors the day Medicare was enacted. Yesterday, when the program faced its first overhaul in 38 years, Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, noted the absence of seniors. He made no mention of the absent senators.
Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com.
