Both sides see asset in Kennedy’s support for Kerry
WASHINGTON (AP) — With John Kerry’s presidential campaign lagging in the polls last fall, fellow Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy paid an unannounced visit to headquarters to bolster a dispirited staff.
Recalling his own race for the White House in 1980, Kennedy said: “Let me tell you, at this point when I was running in Iowa against President Carter I was ahead 20 points” yet lost. “So don’t believe the polls,” one participant recalls him saying.
Fund-raiser, morale-booster, surrogate campaigner and more, Kennedy has given enormous public and private help to Kerry in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“Senator Kennedy is a one-man Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. There’s no other person who has the ability to bless someone like Sen. Kerry” among core Democratic voters, said Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey.
“It’s immeasurable, the impact,” added Markey, who traveled with Kerry earlier in the nominating season.
Now, with the campaign moving into the general election phase, Kerry’s opponents hope to turn the nation’s best known liberal into an asset of their own.
“Another rich, liberal elitist from Massachusetts who claims he’s a man of the people. Priceless,” says the announcer in a television commercial by Citizens United. An image of the two Massachusetts senators provides the visual backdrop for the sarcastic script.
“Who would have guessed it? Ted Kennedy is the conservative senator from Massachusetts,” Republican party chairman Ed Gillespie jabbed this winter, comparing the ratings given the two men by the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action.
Republicans say Kennedy isn’t likely to end up in President Bush’s campaign commercials, designed in part to woo independent voters and peel Democrats from Kerry. Instead, his name probably will turn up in fund-raising appeals, given what Republicans say is his record of motivating GOP donors to dig deeper into their pockets.
“I can’t imagine that we wouldn’t use Ted Kennedy … in terms of earned media, (news coverage), direct mail, things like that,” said Terry Holt, press secretary for Bush’s re-election campaign. “But John Kerry’s record gives us plenty to talk about in and of itself without having to go to Ted Kennedy to make the point.”
At the same time, GOP aides note with satisfaction that Kennedy appeared often by Kerry’s side during the nominating campaign.
Kerry’s aides profess a lack of concern that he will be damaged by association with the man conservatives love to hate. “He’s not going away,” said Stephanie Cutter, a campaign spokeswoman.
Kennedy was dismissive as well.
Voters “want real solutions to real problems. They don’t want labels and they don’t want slogans,” he said in an interview. “That’s worked before but it’s not going to work this time.”
Whatever the impact in the general election, the current campaign has marked something of a role reversal for the two men, given that Kerry has labored in Kennedy’s long Senate shadow for the better part of two decades.
It’s the third time around playing the supporting actor for Kennedy, 72. He helped then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the party’s nominee in 1988, and the late Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas in the 1992 primaries.
Of necessity, Kennedy and Kerry took different paths in the Senate.
Kerry, 60, arrived in 1985, and by then, Kennedy had run for the White House, lost, and emerged as the champion of liberalism. With a conservative Ronald Reagan in the White House, he was the dominant party figure on issues of health care, education and civil rights.
Kerry found his famous colleague eager to protect his Senate turf, according to aides. With his background as a Vietnam War veteran and a prosecutor, the newcomer dug into foreign policy and turned his attention to investigations. He took a seat on the Commerce Committee to help the state’s fishing industry.
Over the years, their staffs engaged in the type of competition and oneupsmanship that complicates life for many senators from the same state.
Personally, “their relationship is excellent,” said Massachusetts Rep. William Delahunt, whose district includes Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, where both men sail in the summers.
Whatever their personal disagreements the two lawmakers several years ago took the unusual step of finding adjoining suites in a Senate office building. When Kennedy turned 70, Kerry was one of only two members of Congress invited to a small dinner party held to mark the occasion.
Aides to both men describe Kennedy as eager to help Kerry in campaigns, in a role described as akin to that of an older brother.
When Kerry was in a tough battle for re-election in 1996, Kennedy privately urged him to become more aggressive with Republican William Weld.
In the current campaign, Kennedy made several stops in Iowa, helping draw large crowds, then warming them up with rousing introductions. He also traveled to New Hampshire, New York, Maine, Michigan, Arizona, Florida and Illinois, raising money as well as campaigning.
There’s been other help, as well.
Under pressure to shake up a struggling campaign last fall, Kerry approached his colleague on the Senate floor, according to several sources, and asked to hire his Kennedy’s chief of staff, Mary Beth Cahill.
Kennedy agreed, and after considering the move for a few weeks, Kerry gave her command of his campaign.