Obama to Kerry: "I'm here because of you." [View All]

[babylonsister]

nice article about Senator Kerry here...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1917460,00.html

snip//


By then it was clear that Kerry's 2004 run left at least one enduring mark on American politics. On the wall of Kerry's office hangs his invitation to President Obama's Inauguration. In the center of the glass is a handwritten note from Obama. It reads, "I'm here because of you." Kerry, of course, had picked Obama to deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention — the speech that launched Obama into superstardom. Kerry decided to endorse Obama in late 2007 and went public in early 2008.

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Kerry has also emerged as a problem solver on health care. The Obama Administration had rejected Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus' idea to tax some health-care benefits because it would raise taxes on the middle class. When Baucus' panel came up $320 billion short of paying for its proposed reforms, Kerry suggested taxing insurers that offer high-end plans — those worth more than $9,000 a year for individuals or $25,000 a year for families — in order to raise $145 billion. It was an idea that he and then New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, among others, had pioneered in 1994. When Kerry dusted it off this summer, unions balked, since many of their plans are worth as much as $25,000 a year. He convened some of the more vocal opponents last month. "I'm doing what Teddy Kennedy would do ... I'm finding a compromise to get a bill passed," he told the group. Kerry didn't win them over, but they did pledge not to oppose the proposal.

But it is as Foreign Relations chairman that Kerry has become most influential. A relationship with Syrian President Bashar Assad, forged in 2005, helped Kerry play the key role in thawing U.S.-Syrian relations after the White House renewed Bush-era sanctions on Damascus in May. With Lugar, he shepherded a $1.5 billion nonmilitary-aid package to Pakistan last spring. His support is also vital to Obama's surge strategy in Afghanistan; though he voted to send more troops earlier this year, Kerry now wonders whether the Administration has a clear agenda there. "I'm very concerned about Afghanistan's footprint," he says. "The breadth of challenges that we face there, with police, with governance, corruption, narcotics, tribalism, other kinds of things ... may be well beyond the narrower definition the President gave the mission." Kerry plans to hold hearings in the fall, in part to force the White House to clarify its goals.

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