OLEAN -- Now the muddy fun begins.
With Massachusetts senator John Kerry knocking off rivals state-by-state for the impending Democratic Party presidential nomination, studious Republican researchers in stuffy little offices in the nation's capital and elsewhere are getting to work.
The GOP diggers have been compiling background material on all the Democratic candidates -- on some more than others -- and there are plenty of important states left to decide, but Kerry's impressive weekend and increasing momentum have worried Republican campaign experts rolling up their shirtsleeves.
Kerry scored impressive caucus victories in Michigan and the state of Washington over the weekend, and major polls ("Newsweek," CNN-USA Today) showed him leading President George W. Bush by five points or more if the general election were held today. Another generation of Republicans remembers that, at this point in 1992, some guy from Arkansas named Bill Clinton was more than 20 points down to the current president's confident daddy in the same polls.
The Republicans are nervous. The White House is nervous. The president's advisers are nervous. And that means plenty of "negative enlightenment" about John Kerry is under preparation, even as you read this. It will be facilitated by the huge GOP campaign war chest, and if Kerry wins the Democratic nod and keeps even close to Dubya through the autumn weeks, the drumbeat of "revelations" and nicely placed negative "news" stories about Kerry's past will grow deafening, and the rhetoric remarkably nasty.
Until Iowa and New Hampshire, the top Republican campaign strategists thought they had it made.
Oh, yes, they suspected all along former Vermont governor Howard Dean -- who until mid-January looked unbeatable -- might implode in a vapor of national inexperience, questionable ideas, questionable party loyalty, bad decision-making, wastrel spending and a near-the-surface weird streak a mile wide. But still, they hoped. The comfortable prospect of Howard Dean up against George W. Bush provided confidence to Republican operatives that approached fervor.
Leading conservative magazine "The National Review," in a recent and destined-to-be-famous headline -- placed against Dean's visage on the cover -- read "Please Nominate This Man." That smugness has evaporated. They fear Kerry, as his campaign bus name says, might be the "Real Deal." They fear that Democrats -- always reliably eviscerating each other at this point in the game -- are seriously paying attention to candidate "electability" at this point.
Actually, Republicans have feared John Kerry for a third of a century.
Way back in 1971 -- with Kerry drawing lots of publicity as head of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and from his eloquent testimony before Congress -- the Richard Nixon White House zeroed in on him.
Kerry was in his late 20s and newly returned from heroic Navy service in Vietnam, but his charismatic opposition to the disastrous conflict had Nixon worried enough to sic his slickest and meanest inside counsel on Kerry. Charles Colson (who later did ample prison time for his role in Watergate and other Nixonian outrages) reported back his intentions for Kerry in a secret memo dug up last June by the Boston Globe: "Destroy the young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader."
Here are some of the claims you will hear about John Kerry, probably sooner than later. They may not all be triggered by Republican research, but the GOP won't be unhappy with their dissemination, and if they seem to hinder Kerry's chances, the flames of bad publicity will be fanned. Kerry will hear these accusations:
He's a Hypocritical Phony -- In his war, John Kerry won a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, which got him an early transfer back to the states. But on April 23, 1971, as protests against the Vietnam War were heating up in Washington and elsewhere, John Kerry joined many other Vietnam Veterans Against the War in heaving his medals in protest over a wood-and-wire fence in front of the Capitol. Or did he?
Years later, a reporter noticed Kerry had the very same medals carefully framed in his Senate office and asked about it. Kerry acknowledged those weren't his medals that he had tossed into a container labeled "Trash." He had thrown only his chest ribbons, said Kerry. The medals Kerry tossed were handed to him by two other vets he didn't even know -- one of them from World War II -- who opposed the Vietnam fighting. The protest event was important in American history. Just days before the display of disgust, a skimpy band of 800 protesters was drawing little publicity on the Mall. After Kerry threw "his" medals, it swelled to 250,000 protesters. It was clear to the public the nation's views on Vietnam were changing.
He's Ambitious and Unpatriotic -- Vietnam Veterans Against the War had connections to actress Jane Fonda, who is still held in derision by almost every combat veteran of that conflict for gleefully cavorting with North Vietnamese troops on a widely filmed "peace" visit to the then-enemy country, and for jeopardizing the lives of prisoners of war by informing her hosts of POW pleas and passed notes. Kerry was aware of the group's Fonda connections, but hijacked its leadership anyway once he knew the war was becoming unpopular.
No Man of the People -- His 2004 stump speeches have resonated with promised support for the forgotten man, the common American who is suffering at the hands of the Bush White House. Kerry, it turns out upon scrutiny, is a bona fide patrician who comes from a well-heeled and privileged background. He spent much of his youth in expensive boarding schools in Switzerland and New England, including the posh St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., which has a 2,000-acre campus and cathedral-like buildings. His maternal ancestors included the Forbes and Winthrops, and Kerry had access to their storied estates in Europe and America. He sailed with John F. Kennedy. He dated Jackie Kennedy's half-sister. At Yale, Kerry was a member of Skull and Bones, the same secret society that Bush the Elder belonged to, and which provided little-publicized business, political and intelligence community connections for which the first President Bush was greatly criticized.
He's Half Jewish -- This is one conservative bigots are likely to haul out if Kerry gets really close. Diligent research by the Boston Globe revealed Kerry's paternal grandfather and grandmother were Jews from Czechoslovakia and Hungary respectively.
According to a story by the Globe's Michael Kranish, Fritz Kohn, to escape violent anti-Semitism in those countries as the 20th century dawned, changed his name to Frederick Kerry after randomly dropping a pencil on a map of Ireland and hitting County Kerry. He and his wife converted to Catholicism in 1902 and sailed to the United States in 1905.
History of Family Suicide -- That grandfather, Frederick Kerry, shot himself in the head in a hotel washroom in Boston around Thanksgiving time in 1921.
Male Gold-Digger -- Kerry's wives have been incredibly rich women. When Kerry married his first wife, Julia Stimson Thorne, on her family's 200-acre Long Island estate, she wore a wedding dress first worn by a direct ancestor so well-connected that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton attended her nuptials. Kerry's current wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, inherited the ketchup and pickle fortune, is worth about $500 million outright, and helps run the $1 billion Heinz family endowment fund.
Sneaky Personal Investor -- In late 1983, Kerry, shortly before calling for closure of "crazy loopholes" in the federal tax structure, participated in a questionable Cayman Islands tax shelter scheme involving complicated commodities straddles. He lost about $30,000 on buy-and-sell contracts totaling almost $239,000 -- but never reported the loss on his income taxes (as he could have for a substantial deduction) nor the total investment on his Senate financial disclosure forms. Kerry's own accountant convinced him the scheme bordered on illegal. Only last summer did he admit to the Boston Globe's Brian Mooney that he swallowed the commodities losses to avoid political embarrassment. Kerry did vote for the Tax Reform Act of 1986 that eliminated most such shelters.
The above observations are not listed to convince you, dear reader, to reconsider your possible support of John Kerry for president. They are merely warnings that you will hear more of these items if Kerry even comes close to threatening George W. Bush's second term.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | February 10 2004 |