Relaxation comes hard for Kerry, as bike tumble mars a visit home
The transition from a common political figure to a national standard-bearer is not always without its hitches, and yesterday John F. Kerry found that leading his life and tending to his business are not a simple Sunday walk in the park as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
The senator jetted out of Washington at 9 a.m., intent on spending the day in Boston, working through a pile of paperwork, exercising along the banks of the Charles River, and relaxing with his daughter Vanessa, before staying the night at his Beacon Hill townhouse.
But even before his chartered
Kerry declined to elaborate on why he changed plans, telling reporters, "some decisions are more important than being on the road." The campaign will announce in Washington this morning what one aide called a "massive" advertising buy, focusing on Kerry's biography.
The Kerry campaign has spent about $17 million on television and radio ads. That amount has been bolstered by some $30 million in spending by outside groups that support the Democrats and have aired anti-Bush ads. The Bush campaign has spent about $60 million.
The new Kerry ad buy follows the campaign's announcement last week that it had already met its goal of raising $80 million by the start of the Democratic National Convention in late July. The campaign said it would now try to raise $100 million before the convention.
Kerry said he had no choice but to return to Boston, because "I just have an office worth of paper that needs to be processed." At the same time, he concluded he had no alternative but to abort his overnight stay because he did not have enough time today to hold all the meetings required of him if, as had been planned, he was traveling back to the capital this morning in advance of a noon speech to the Anti-Defamation League.
Substantively, Kerry had little to say during the day, except to label images of US soldiers allegedly abusing Iraqi prisoners "disgraceful." He pointed to a statement he issued last week in which he also said: "As Americans, we must stand tall for the rule of law and freedom everywhere. But we cannot let the actions of a few overshadow the tremendous good work that thousands of soldiers are doing every day in Iraq and all over the world."
In addition, the senator said he caught only the final moments of Jay Leno's comedy routine at Saturday night's White House Correspondents Association dinner in Washington.
During the star-studded affair, a crowd of 2,500 -- including Kerry's daughters, Vanessa and Alexandra -- watched as Leno, an Andover native and host of NBC's "Tonight Show," aired a tape purporting to show a motorcycle ridden by Kerry smashing into what was depicted as Bush's campaign bus.
The collision scene came from actual footage shot by a helicopter during what appeared to be a police chase. Kerry said that while he did not see the Leno spoof, "I saw that footage" and labeled it "gross."
Yet later in the day, Kerry crashed on his bicycle in Concord after hitting a sand patch. The bike was damaged, but the senator was not seriously injured in the spill.
He started the ride in Boston, and headed over the Longfellow Bridge and along the Cambridge side of the Charles River trailed by three Secret Service agents on bikes and more in a car. The spill occurred at 1:30 p.m. at Route 2 and Route 126 in Concord and left the senator with a scrape, according to campaign spokesman Jim Loftus. Kerry rode back to Boston in the car.
After his speech in Washington today, he flies to Minneapolis for a fund-raiser as he begins a Western swing that will take him to New Mexico, Arizona, and California, before returning east to Louisiana at week's end.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.
