Nation & World News
Kerry forges turnaround in nomination race
The senator has secured
14 of 16 state party
nominations for the 2004
democratic nomination
By James Kuhnhenn
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
MADISON, Wis. — Last summer,
John Kerry assembled his top advisors
at his vacation home in Nantucket to
hear their grievances. As his aides and
counselors vented, Kerry sat anxious
ly, his right hand pulling at his left fin
gers, wringing his hands.
He hated refereeing these disputes,
he told one participant. They were
keeping him from being an effective
campaigner. Even then, six months
before the first voting, Kerry knew his
candidacy was in trouble.
Over the next three months, Kerry's
campaign went into a tailspin. Former
Vermont Gov. Howard Dean rose in
the polls, raked in money and cap
tured media attention. Kerry couldn't
understand how the former governor
of a small state was outdoing him and
his three decades of public service But
Kerry couldn't articulate his message,
and the infighting in his camp contin
ued to mount.
Now, with 14 wins out of 16 state
nominating contests, the Massachu
setts senator is on the verge of winning
his part/s nomination, and the revival
of his candidacy is one of the more re
markable resurrections in American
politics. Kerry bet his political reputa
tion, his campaign and $6.4 million
that he borrowed against his house in
Boston on his pollster's advice to con
centrate his entire effort on Iowa.
"In part," said a strategist close to
the campaign, "it was a strategy bom
out of desperation."
Like other sources for this story,
the operative spoke only on the
condition of anonymity because it's
a cardinal sin in politics to upstage
the candidate.
The low point of the campaign
came on Nov. 10, a cold, rainy Mon
day in Iowa. The night before, Kerry
had fired his campaign manager, Jim
Jordan, in a staff shakeup that only re
inforced the notion that the wheels
were coming off his campaign.
Kerry planned a tour of Iowa with
veterans to tout his decorated service
in Vietnam and his national securi
ty credentials. But no one paid atten
tion to the busload of veterans Ker
ry had in tow. Jordan's dismissal was
the news.
At the end of the day, prompted by
the vets to recite a poem, Kerry offered
a near perfect rendition of Rudyard
Kipling's "Gunga Din," the story of an
Indian water boy who died defending
British soldiers.
"Din! Din! Din!" Kerry intoned the
last stanza as his bus pulled into
Cedar Rapids.
"You Lazarushian-leather Gunga
Din!
"Tho' I've belted you an' flayed you,
"By the livin' Gawd that made you,
"You're a better man than I am,
Gunga Din."
To some of those listening, "Din"
was "Dean," and the last line was
an acknowledgement of a bitter po
litical truth.
To replace Jordan, Kerry hired Mary
Beth Cahill, a former chief of staff to
fellow Massachusetts Sen. Edward
Kennedy. He also hired Stephanie
Cutter, a Kennedy spokeswoman, and
David Morehouse, an old campaign
hand for Vice President A1 Gore, to
ran the campaign's communications.
"Mary Beth came in and put order
in a place that was complete disor
der," a top Kerry aide said.
By the end of the week, a new Kerry
began to emerge. First, he announced
that he was going to join Dean and
Bush in forgoing federal campaign
funds and the spending limits that
come with them. Second, the cam
paign decided to show some muscle
at the Iowa Democrats' annual Jack
son-Jefferson dinner on Nov. 15.
Kerry dusted off an old speech line
that had been overruled when Jordan
had pushed it during the earlier cam
paign quarrels. If Bush wanted to
make the election about national se
curity, Kerry boomed: "Bring It On!"
In New Hampshire, though, the
polls showed Kerry still trailing Dean
by more than 25 percentage points.
Some staffers were uncertain that an
Iowa-only campaign would turn his
fortunes around, and fund-raisers
were anxious. Cahill called a meeting
on Dec. 10, and pollster Mark Mell
man laid out his case.
Mellman had studied past cam
paigns, and he knew that 80 percent
of the voters in New Hampshire pri
maries made their decisions after Jan.
1, many of them in the final days of
the campaign. Iowa's caucuses were
on Jan. 19; the New Hampshire pri
mary was Jan. 27. Mellman's polls in
Iowa showed Kerry rising, tying Mis
souri Rep. Dick Gephardt for second
place and closing in on Dean.
"The fire lit by (Iowa's) caucuses
will have huge repercussions for our
campaign," he wrote in a memo for
the meeting.
Dean had been endorsed by former
Vice President A1 Gore, but he was get
ting greater scrutiny as the front-run
ner. Kerry attacked Dean for saying
that Americans were no safer from ter
rorist threats after Saddam Hussein's
capture than they had been before.
The campaign kept up a steady drum
beat about Dean's lack of foreign pol
icy experience.
"This is not the time for untested
leadership to step into the shoes of
the leader of the free world and presi
dency of the United States of Ameri
ca," Kerry said.
Then came The Ad. It was one thing
to surround Kerry with fellow veter
ans; it was another to showcase his
stint as the decorated skipper of a
Navy patrol boat in Vietnam's danger
ous Mekong Delta.
Kerry, however, 'was uncomfort
able with talking about himself," said
a senior aide. So the campaign
clipped some footage of his crewmen
reminiscing about their skipper. They
chose Del Sandusky, the pilot of Ker
ry's boat and a down-to-earth Kerry
supporter. Sandusky's ad and the en
tourage of veterans that followed
helped connect Kerry, a man of privi
lege and wealth, to average voters.
"They softened his elitist roots,"
said the strategist close to the
campaign.
Undecided voters began to give
Kerry another look. Questions about
his vote in favor of using force in Iraq
subsided. Passionate antiwar Democ
rats were backing Dean, anyway.
The rest of the registered Democrats
seemed simply to want a way out of
the war. Kerry's foreign policy experi
ence appeared to reassure them.
Linda Snyder, a 54-year-old family
counselor from Council Bluffs, Iowa,
offered a typical assessment. Dean,
she said, was a "loose cannon." Of
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina,
she said she had "a concern about his
grasp of foreign affairs." But of Kerry,
she said, "I trust his record. I oust the
things he's done."
Kerry shortened his stump speech
to a tight 10 to 15 minutes and, at
every stop, he opened the floor to
questions and urged voters to "grill"
him. The sessions ran long as he tried
to accommodate every query. It
wrecked his schedule. Time and again
he was forced to apologize for a late
arrival. Then he'd stay and answer
every question again.
By the time Iowa caucus day ar
rived on Jan. 19, Kerry was atop the
polls by a slim margin. When the
caucuses ended that night, he'd
swept the state. Edwards was in sec
ond place, Dean was far back in
third, and Gephardt, in fourth, was
forced to abandon the race.
As Mellman had predicted, the ava
lanche followed. Within days, Kerry
had closed a double-digit gap with
Dean in New Hampshire, and on pri
mary night, he won by 12 points.
From there on, states began falling
like dominoes, with only Oklahoma,
which went to retired Army Gen. Wes
ley Clark, and South Carolina, which
Edwards won, bucking the tide.
The swiftness of Kerry's turnaround
was stunning. "Everything that hap
pened, happened really fast and really
late," one strategist said.
"Sure it was a risk," Kerry said last
week, reflecting on the Iowa strategy.
But in a bit of post-election bravado,
he added: "I never worried."
(c) 2004, Knight Ridder/
Tribune Information Services.
CORRECTION
"University postpones arena plans indefinitely" (ODE, Feb. 12) incorrect
ly stated that University President Dave Frohnmayer made the announce
ment on Monday to postpone plans for the arena. The announcement was
actually made on Wednesday.
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