Kerry battles to dispel the myths

Is he just another Massachusetts liberal? Is he a wimp? Is he aloof? No on all counts, the Democratic candidate for president says.

MANNING, S.C. - At the bustling Manning Restaurant, Joey Moore dug into fried chicken and butter beans laced with fat back before heading out for some dove shooting.

The retired convenience store owner paused from swapping hunting stories to talk about another hunter who had just formally declared his candidacy for the presidency outside Charleston with Vietnam War buddies at his side.

"John Kerry is trying to portray himself as a candidate who's a regular person. But I still think he seems like another wealthy Nantucket guy who doesn't relate to the people I know," said Moore, a Democrat who likes North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

This is the sentiment Kerry needs to tamp down as he portrays himself as the strongest challenger to President Bush. Having lost his front-runner status for the Democratic nomination to blunt-talking former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Kerry is touting a broad national appeal that has yet to be demonstrated.

That's one reason why Kerry formally announced his candidacy last week (though he's been running for more than a year) in South Carolina, a state he hadn't visited in four months.

South Carolina's Feb. 3 primary comes a week after New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary. The state's Democratic voters are much more conservative than those in New Hampshire and Iowa, where Dean is now leading. South Carolina could serve as a blockade to Dean's momentum, though a Zogby poll last week showed the race there is wide open. Kerry, Dean, Edwards, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, and Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt are essentially tied, with Florida Sen. Bob Graham barely registering.

"This is a national campaign, not a regional campaign," Kerry said in an interview last week, referring to his South Carolina announcement and Dean. "I'm a stronger national candidate, and a stronger candidate to beat George Bush."

The question in South Carolina and elsewhere is whether a New England blue blood war hero represents Democrats' past failures or future victories.

"It sounds like a cliche, but Democrats here are really looking for the candidate who can beat Bush, and Kerry's background I think could be persuasive and give him an opening," said Ron Romine, a Democratic activist in upstate South Carolina and political scientist at the University of South Carolina at Spartanburg.

"But John Kerry's a cipher around here. People don't know anything about him. Democrats with memories think of Mike Dukakis. I've heard a few of my friends say, "Here we go again, another Massachusetts liberal.' "

Call it the Massachusetts wimp question.

Many Democrats remember the 1988 image, repeatedly replayed in GOP campaign ads, of former Massachusetts Gov. Dukakis riding awkwardly in a tank and looking to many like anything but a commander in chief. Dukakis lost 40 states.

Kerry supporters steadily battle Dukakis comparisons even as they are constantly reminded that no Democrat from outside the South has won the presidency since another Massachusetts senator, John F. Kennedy, in 1960. They insist Kerry is different.

On NBC's Today and in magazine spreads, Kerry dons a wet suit and hops aboard kite-driven surfboards. In stump speeches, he usually mentions his service in Vietnam. Anchors Aweigh played at his South Carolina announcement speech.

The day before his South Carolina announcement, Kerry, 59, toured a Manchester, N.H., firehouse. Before long he steered the conversation away from Hazmat equipment.

"Any of you guys ride a bike?" he asked, letting them know that he rides a Harley.

Kerry's answer to the wimp question? Testosterone.

"Profoundly no, and everything in my record says no," he said, ticking off a series of accomplishments.

Kerry was a prosecutor who sent people to prison for life. As a senator, he led the fight to put 100,000 more police officers on America's streets. He owns a gun and hunts (but supports gun control), supported welfare reform and became one of the first Democrats to back the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction plan in the 1980s. He took on Oliver North, and he exposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega's drug ties to the CIA.

Most of all, Kerry makes sure people know he is the only Democratic candidate with combat experience.

After graduating from Yale University, Kerry enlisted in the Navy in 1966 and served two tours in Vietnam. The gunboat skipper came home with a Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, three purple hearts and deep skepticism about the war.

He became a leading war protester, at 27 testifying passionately before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to die for a mistake?"

Three decades later, the former warrior protester is expressing what many see as conflicting sentiments over America's latest war.

He turned off many Democrats by voting to support the use of force in Iraq. His criticism of Bush for poor diplomacy and postwar planning has opened him to charges of waffling.

At a union gathering in New Hampshire last week, Democratic activist Liana Foxvog pressed Kerry on why he voted for war in Iraq. He came right back at her.

"Even the U.N. said Saddam Hussein's not in compliance," Kerry said. "So what do you do when someone's not in compliance? You have to hold them accountable."

"Why not continue with the inspections?" Foxvog responded skeptically.

"Well, you've got to have some threat that you're going to do something. That's what we put in place," Kerry said of the resolution authorizing force. "Unfortunately, the president rushed to war. I think my vote was correct, and I think the U.N. needed to uphold its own resolution. I regret the president didn't do a very good job of diplomacy, didn't do the planning and didn't do the hard work necessary to win the peace."

With the country waging war on terrorists and placing troops in harm's way, Kerry backers see his military background as critical to his appeal.

"He can escape the Dukakis debacle," said Democrat Bob Swartzel, a computer technician from Charleston. "Howard Dean is an ultraliberal who tends to be caustic and abrasive, and that's not going to play well in places like South Carolina. John Kerry has the background and experience. He understands warfare. Long-term, he's the one who can beat Bush."

Military heroics only take candidates for president so far.

South Carolina, home to hundreds of thousands of veterans, was where Bush in 2000 started to beat back the challenge from Arizona Sen. John McCain, the former Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam.

At the Road King truck stop southeast of Columbia, former Marine James Gunn showed photos of himself with Bush as they were surrounded by veterans in 2000. The chairman of the national Coalition of Retired Military Veterans helped organize veterans to back Bush over McCain.

"It was a mistake," said Gunn, sipping coffee and complaining Bush reneged on a promise to improve medical benefits for veterans.

But Gunn, a Republican who likes Graham and Lieberman, said Kerry is a "protester-turned-politician" who will say anything.

"He talks about his military record twice as much as McCain did," Gunn said. "People that brag about that don't sit well with us."

By the front door of his Greenville law office, state Rep. Fletcher Smith has piled a stack of Lieberman campaign brochures. The Connecticut senator's strong support for the military and his deep religious faith will win over South Carolina, Smith said.

Smith likes Kerry too, particularly his military experience. He sees in the Massachusetts senator more Kennedy than Dukakis. Still, he wondered about Kerry's preppie boarding school background and personality.

"I don't think a lot of Southerners like people who grew up with a silver spoon in their mouth, but the president manages to seem like a regular guy," Smith said.

Uncertainty about Kerry's personality stretches well beyond South Carolina. A search of the LexisNexis database finds the words "John Kerry" and "aloof" in more than 200 news stories since January. The description has dogged Kerry since he first won a Senate seat in 1984. Friends say it has more to do with his height of 6 feet 4 inches, and Boston brahmin bearing, than any real diffidence.

In New Hampshire last week, Kerry wiped tears away after hearing a woman who was recently laid off recount her determination to put her kids through college.

Kerry looks anything but aloof working a crowd. He throws his arms around people, slaps backs and kneads shoulders. If he sees one person in a group of 20 scowling at him, he lopes straight at that person looking for a connection.

"Kerry's just flat out physical presence, the way he carries himself, is impressive," said Greenville resident Danny Day, who was among several hundred South Carolinians cheering Kerry's announcement by an aircraft carrier near Charleston.

Day, 51, recently lost his manufacturing job and is fed up with Bush, whom he supported in 2000. He looks at the Democratic field and sees a clear choice.

"Howard Dean is way to the left of most of the country. People throughout the country, especially in the South, are looking for some common-sense, level-headed leadership. That's Kerry."

The Kerry agenda is not dramatically different from any other Democrat's. He wants to jump-start the economy, in part by rescinding Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. He would pump money into strapped states, spend more on infrastructure and enact tax credits to discourage companies from moving overseas.

Kerry would try to drive down health care costs and expand access to health insurance. He would push renewable energy sources to reduce America's oil dependence, and he would seek to strengthen America's security in part by rebuilding cooperation and support among allies.

Mostly, though, he's selling stature and presidential bearing. He says he is the candidate with the background to take on Bush over national security.

"We need to have a (candidate) who has the ability to convince America that in the middle of the war on terror, changing the commander in chief is smart," Kerry said, "and I think I can fill the shoes of commander in chief."

Once leading the Democratic field in money, campaign staff heavyweights and expectations, he is looking to make up lost ground and starting to take shots at Dean.

The former Vermont governor's plan to rescind all of Bush's tax cuts, he said, would amount to raising taxes on the middle class. Dean has "zero foreign policy experience" at a time when it's crucial.

In Mount Pleasant, S.C., last week, the Kerry pitch resonated with retired phone company employee Walter Duane, who watched Kerry surrounded by his old Vietnam crewmates.

"Basically, my heart is with Dean," Duane acknowledged. "But John Kerry is the one I want to see debating Bush. The last candidate we had from Massachusetts fought with gloves on. Kerry knows how to be a gut-fighter. He's the one who can win."

- Adam C. Smith can be reached at 727 893-8241 or adam@sptimes.com

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