Florida voice has Kerry's ear

Marcus Jadotte, 32, has gone from Opa-locka to the top 15 of the Democrat's advisers.

[Times photo: Adam Smith] Marcus Jadotte participates in the daily 7:30 a.m. conference call.

WASHINGTON - On another 14-hour day with the John Kerry campaign last week, Marcus Jadotte juggled umpteen must-do duties.

There were meetings with the Rev. Al Sharpton and with Hugh Price, head of the national Urban League. There had been interviews with prospective hires to lead the campaign's ground operations in make-or-break battleground states. And he needed to talk to a longtime Miami-Dade precinct organizer worried that she might miss the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

"Of course I would want to talk to her," Kerry's deputy campaign manager said, because it's important "to remember where you're from."

Jadotte, a smooth and confident 32-year-old, is the product of a working class single parent family from Opa-locka who now works in the top echelon of the Kerry campaign. On a senior campaign staff dominated by Northeasterners, veteran Florida Democratic strategists see him as the guarantee that Kerry won't veer too far off course in the fight for America's biggest battleground state.

"Florida's going to be one of the two or three states that are most important to John Kerry, and Marcus is the guy who's going to get him there," said Karl Koch, another Democratic strategist who hired Jadotte to help lead Al Gore's 2000 Florida campaign and now works for Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa. "There's nobody who understands Florida better than Marcus, and if I'm in a political battle he is the first person I'm going to call."

Jadotte's duties extend well beyond Florida, though.

He is a nuts-and-bolts administrator, helping deploy and keep an organization of several hundred people on track. On any given day the burly, 6-foot-3 Jadotte is hiring upper level operatives, walking Kerry through a campaign briefing paper and putting in place organizations that will decide whether Kerry cracks the necessary 270 electoral vote tally on Nov. 2.

Often, the jobs are less than pleasant: laying off loyal workers when the campaign was virtually broke after the primary; tackling the Kerry campaign Web site when all the buzz was over Howard Dean's understanding the Internet; and defending the campaign against criticism that it lacks diversity.

Jadotte is the only African-American in the top tier of the campaign and one of three African-Americans among the top 15 or so campaign advisers. He insists the campaign absolutely understands it will lose if it fails to listen to, mobilize and work with minority communities.

When Kerry shook up his once-struggling campaign and switched campaign managers in November, Jadotte was a central force in the transition.

"Marcus has been my right hand," said Mary Beth Cahill, Ted Kennedy's former chief of staff who became campaign manager shortly before the Iowa caucuses rescued Kerry. "Things were a little rocky at first, and I had a few weeks of real trouble in straightening out the campaign and getting us on the right track. Marcus really helped me work my way through that. That raised his stature very high in my eyes."

While not part of Kerry's innermost circle of advisers that includes brother Cam Kerry and media consultant Bob Shrum, he's just outside it. When the 15 or so top staffers check in every morning at 7:30, Jadotte is on the line, sometimes bouncing his 18-month-old son, Ashton, on his lap at home or driving his Volvo into the office. An hour later, when the campaign's five most senior staffers meet to go over administrative issues, Jadotte is there.

It's a heady position for a onetime high school wrestling star whose first taste of politics was as a high schooler knocking on doors for a Miami-Dade County Commission candidate. Sitting last week in an office bedecked with photos of Ted Williams and a map of Florida, he said he never forgets how lucky he is.

"He still sometimes can be in disbelief," said Leroy Sutton, his roommate at Florida State University who lobbies for Best Buddies, a group helping mentally disabled people. "I visited him in Washington a while ago. He and I sat there laughing for about two minutes, saying, "Can you believe we're here?' "

There's a varied and nebulous blend of traits that make up someone capable of rising to the top tier of political operatives nationally. People who have long known Jadotte describe him as ferociously disciplined and hard-working. His loyalty, political instincts and knack for winning over influential contacts have helped him methodically rise in the business.

"We're all going to be working for Marcus one day," quipped Jim Jordan, Kerry's former campaign manager who called Jadotte "maybe the best hire I ever made."

Starting as an aide to the late Gov. Lawton Chiles and as a legislative staffer, Jadotte finally became hooked on politics running President Bill Clinton's campaign in Volusia County in 1996 and two years later worked on the 1998 gubernatorial campaign of Buddy MacKay, who remains a mentor.

MacKay said one of Jadotte's strengths is a lack of cynicism that is unusual in young political operatives. He worries slightly that if Kerry's grass roots organization stalls in Florida, Jadotte might unfairly be blamed for decisions over which he had limited control.

Jadotte's political foundation is grass roots politics, and he served as Florida director for the Al Gore campaign in 2000. While he was chief of staff to Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Hollywood, several presidential contenders recruited him for top jobs. Jadotte said he saw Kerry as by far the strongest challenger to President Bush.

Through a series of political positions that increasingly focused on big picture campaign planning, some see Jadotte's best strength as his understanding the importance of the grass roots front line. It's part of the reason county activists in Florida still get through to Kerry's deputy campaign manager.

"People in politics can be very difficult, and Marcus will spend an enormous amount of time with folks making sure they know they're being listened to. A lot of people don't understand the importance of that," said Nick Baldick, who was North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' presidential campaign manager and was a groomsman in his wedding.

Jadotte doesn't rule out running for office himself one day and said he never sees a time when he won't in some fashion be involved in public service. Like many campaign operatives, Jadotte has no intention of working on campaigns all his life, however. He has a wife, Jennifer, and a son, and wants to have another child, after all.

Still, the rush of politics has yet to dim.

"I hope my last campaign is helping re-elect President John Kerry."

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

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