John Kerry in the Senate - BG endorsement

[Mass]

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/09/10/john_kerry_in_the_senate/

JOHN KERRY is facing his first primary opponent since he was elected to the US Senate in 1984. Perhaps he has become a larger target since running unsuccessfully for president four years ago, or, in some quarters, because of his vote in 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq. But over a long career Kerry has been steadfast in his commitment to Democratic principles, and he has worked tirelessly to advance those principles in straitened political times. The Globe endorses John F. Kerry in the Democratic primary for US Senate Sept. 16.
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More broadly, Kerry has been a strong and often prescient voice: on climate change, on global terrorism threats, on AIDS. He led the 2005 filibuster that ended - by one vote - the Republican effort to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He has been a stalwart friend to veterans, increasing their pay, helping them get small business assistance and fighting for improved healthcare. With a fellow veteran, Republican John McCain, he negotiated painful issues regarding wartime MIAs, which led to normalized relations with Vietnam.
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Kerry has long labored in the shadow of the senior senator, Ted Kennedy, perhaps the most accomplished legislator in US history. Kerry is no Ted Kennedy, nor does he want to even consider a day when he may need to take over Kennedy's role. But we suspect part of the message the Democratic state convention was sending Kerry when O'Reilly won 23 percent of the vote in June was that Kerry needs to step up the pace, applying his prodigious smarts and connections to achieve gains in public policy.
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And this very weird local editorial, of which I cannot figure out whether it is positive or negative? I wonder what you think.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/09/10/a_far_cry_from_04/

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You've been loyal to your party, flying around the country and raising millions to help elect other Democrats, even after giving up on another presidential run of your own.

And even though you still get grief for your constituent services, you have 14 workers in Massachusetts working 800 cases a month for veterans and immigrants and fans who wanted the Patriots' last game of the season to be broadcast outside I-495.

A lot of people are saying you've got a chance to be secretary of state, or defense, if Obama wins. You bat back that talk, knowing that your critics would accuse you of using your office as a stepping stone, even after 24 years, if you didn't.
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[MBS]

1. thanks for the alert to the endorsement

I somehow missed it this morning. I couldn't imagine that even the Globe would do otherwise, but, still: thank goodness.

I did see that local one. . I agree that it's weird. I decided that, in its very weird way, it's basically sympathetic to Jk. Or at least that was its aim. But weirdly.

[karynnj]

4. I think the local one is actually very sypathetic, while written in a very unusual

sardonic(?) way for an endorsement. It's almost a stream of consciousness, bringing up images, but intentionally not weaving them into a narrative. It does elicit to some degree what many of us sometimes feel. That he is a very good person and a great Senator, who rarely gets the credit he is due. He says he is very rich, very tall, and not cuddly - but I wonder if what he is meaning is that he is not malleable or changeable by people around him. He stays precisely who he is - and that is unusual and the opposite of the chameleon nation of most politicians. (Could the "not cuddly" really be the perception both physically and in character of being upright and having a spine (DU to the contrary)? After all he says this in spite of the thousands of pictures of Kerry hugging people.)

He speaks of the fact that EOR got the support he did because he alone of the big 3 MA Democrats who endorsed Obama was "punished". It also points out that he HAS people working for what people want and need - and gets little credit.

I cringed when the Nantucket picture was brought up, but the description of the dilemma is well written - the only problem is that it is NOT clear in the photos when Kerry was there that the girls were drunk then.

It is sympathetic in that it does recognize what almost was and in some ways admits that Kerry success doesn't come from lucky breaks, the opposite is true.

[TayTay]

2. The Yvonne Abraham piece is interesting

And it sort of compliments the Boston Globe Editorial. (This column by her runs in the City & Region section of the Boston Globe today 09/10/08.)

A long time ago, at the very beginning of the DU JK forum, people wanted to know what was up with Sen. Kerry and Massachusetts. Nearly 4 years later, I think more people understand now what I said then, "It's complicated." It is.

They want him to live up to this immense potential he has. Take the endorsement and the column together and you can see this in a nutshell: incredibly talented public servant who sometimes does things that make people scratch their heads. Not exactly like everyone else here, but still, wow! Can you do more? You certainly are capable of it. Yeah, I agree the things he has done are very impressive, but, gee, we want more cuz you are so capable of it.

See, it really is complicated.

[karynnj]

5. Interesting you say that, because I was immediately reminded

of the excellent things you wrote back then and could see them in these pieces.

I wonder if some of it comes from the fact that in 1971, he set a bar that would be impossible for anyone ever to always stay above. At that instant, he was impossibly brilliant, eloquent, moral and focused. How many 27 year olds are seriously asked if they want to be President? That image is maybe why doing things that all politicians occasionally do are a disappointment in his case and barely or not mentioned for others. It is because he often is at that standard that there is, for some people, almost a compelling need to question if he is for real. Maybe it is the current need to feel a leader is "like us" that leads some to reject real greatness because they do see is not like everyone else.

[TayTay]

6. This is also a state with cliques and is very clannish

And it is very, very difficult for an "orphan" to get credit. Who is this person, what parish does he come from? Is he Irish, Italian, French, or what? Which people that we already know and are used to around here know and vouch for him. "Oh yeah, that's Jimmy, I went to school with him, he's a good guy." There are variations of that statement all around for a lot of pols.

There were barriers to be broken here with no mentors and no built-in advantages of place and ethnicity and so forth. Factor that in. It means a lot around here. It points to just how hard it has been for some people to make it in this State.

[MBS]

8. I've long thought that this was the real core of the problem.

. . that he wasn't "one of the boys" . "Orphan" is an apt descriptor here. Makes me admire him all the more, that he's made his way anyway.

[TayTay]

3. Nice LTTE in the paper today

North Adams Transcript

http://www.thetranscript.com/letters/ci_10418552

A vote for John Kerry

[Mass]

7. And the Phoenix endorses Kerry - The Right Stuff.

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/68086-right-stuff/

Politics is often a matter of perspective. When Massachusetts senator John Kerry was the Democratic candidate for president four years ago, running against incumbent George W. Bush, the Republicans portrayed him as a left-wing liberal. These days, Kerry’s opponent in the Democratic primary, Gloucester lawyer Ed O’Reilly, is charging that Kerry is not progressive enough. Only in Massachusetts could John Kerry be attacked for being a dangerous centrist.

The O’Reilly campaign has three principal prongs of attack: Kerry is too aloof (it is not exactly news that the state’s junior senator is not a regular at the Eire Pub); Kerry was wrong to vote in favor of the Iraq War (this is something that Kerry has clearly acknowledged, as have other progressives, such as Senators Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Joe Biden of Delaware, the latter of whom — if you haven’t noticed — holds the number-two spot on Senator Barack Obama’s anti-war ticket); and Kerry is wrong about same-sex marriage (bingo, a direct hit on that issue).

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Truth be told, O’Reilly’s is a soreheaded candidacy. He is backed by a coalition of principled progressives who truly are to the left of Kerry. But that core is supplemented by a band of Clinton supporters still angry that Kerry chose to support Obama over their woman, pro-Palestinian environmentalists whose grip on reality is at best tenuous, and people who for one reason or another just don’t like Kerry. Well, good for them. Viva democracy. If the O’Reilly campaign serves no other purpose than to hold Kerry’s feet to the fire for his unfortunate stance against full marriage rights for same-sex couples, then it has performed a public service.

John Kerry, once again, deserves the Democratic Party’s nomination. Kerry’s experience is just too strong to be discounted. His experience in national and international affairs is unmatched in Massachusetts by anyone other than his senior Senate colleague, Ted Kennedy.

As Democrats and Independents go to the polls next Tuesday to participate in the statewide primary, the Boston Phoenix strongly recommends a vote for Kerry.
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[MBS]

9. oh, this is a good one.

Nice description of the EOR voters. "Viva democracy" indeed. :)