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The indispensable man:
Meet Senator John Kerry’s chief of stuff
By By Jodi Wilgoren 4/29/04
The man who would be president takes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Ñ on whole wheat, strawberry jelly preferred to grape Ñ twice a day on the campaign trail. He wears $15 reading glasses, off the rack at a CVS drug store. Before bedtime, he starts but rarely finishes movies like “Seabiscuit” and “The Blues Brothers” in his hotel suite. Come morning, he leaves $20 for the maid.
Voters do not learn these tidbits about Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the all-but-crowned Democratic nominee for president, from his campaign Web site, his public speeches or his television advertisements. These and other details are the portfolio of the man literally behind the man, ready with a uncapped bottle of water whenever Kerry’s throat runs dry: Marvin Nicholson Jr., Chief of Stuff. “I can’t help with policy, I don’t do press,” said Nicholson, 32, a former bartender and caddie who never voted before meeting Kerry in 1998. “When he wants that peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I’m ready.” So Nicholson crisscrosses the country with a loaf of bread in his bag. He makes most of the sandwiches himself, sometimes supplementing them with room service.
To spend a day in Nicholson’s shadow is to see the personal side of a candidate entering an increasingly scripted and sheltered phase of the campaign. Kerry, 59, is comfortable being catered to. He has his moods and his myriad personal needs. A social loner, he is content to hang out with an aide half his age. Nicholson rouses Kerry each morning with a phone call. Then, after a few minutes, he heads down the hall, picks up the newspapers outside Kerry’s door and brings them to him. He orders and delivers all of Kerry’s meals. He keeps little black books filled with the names and numbers of people Kerry meets, dials many of his telephone calls, helps select his neckties (and opening one-liners), collects gifts from well-wishers and transports Kerry’s leather briefcase, three hunter-green duffels and two navy suit bags. At night, he often stays by Kerry’s side until he is ready to turn in. If he sounds like a glorified valet, Nicholson is also Kerry’s ambassador, spreading smiles and remembering names for a candidate known to fumble them, reading his reactions for other aides. And in an entourage of politicos and policy wonks, Nicholson is Kerry’s buddy, going long to catch the football whenever Kerry feels like tossing it.
Every modern presidential candidate has a factotum. This “body man” is typically an ambitious Washington junkie, overqualified to schlep bags but eager to shake the high-powered hands in between. Greg Schneiders, an international political consultant, was Jimmy Carter’s administrative assistant in the 1976 campaign. He cites that fact in the first paragraph of his book, even though he went on to run the day-to-day operations of the White House communications office, become a Senate press secretary and teach at Georgetown University. Two of President Bill Clinton’s former aides became business executives; one of Gore’s aides is now engaged to one of his daughters.
Nicholson earned a geography degree at the University of Western Ontario and aspired to the Weather Channel. He stands 6-foot-8, or 2.03 meters, and seems a different breed. Reared in Canada on Vancouver Island and in Toronto by an American mother Ñ his father died when he was 9 Ñ Nicholson carries dual citizenship. He befriended Kerry, a customer, while working at a windsurfing shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then caddied for him two summers on Nantucket. He postponed Kerry’s offer of a Senate internship to caddie at Augusta National, home of the Masters, then landed in Washington the week before the 2000 election. By New Year’s, he had become Kerry’s driver. They hit the campaign trail together last winter.
Nicholson’s role has evolved with the campaign. He is no longer the guy who gets the toothpaste. Instead, Nicholson, who earned $45,000 last year, is the guy who asks the guy to get the toothpaste. There are plenty of people around, now, to help lug Kerry’s Spanish guitar to his room at night and tote his fancy Serotta racing bicycle on and off the plane. But it is Nicholson who anticipates Kerry’s needs as they make eye contact across the crowds. It is Nicholson who is ready with a fresh shirt after a rally in scorching heat. When Kerry stays overnight at supporters’ homes, it is Nicholson who accompanies him. When Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, joins him on the road, Nicholson’s routine hardly changes. And it is Nicholson who decides what and when Kerry eats, no longer needing to ask about his cravings. “Can I have that prepared dry with peanut butter on the side?” he asked the other morning in Tampa, Florida, as he ordered two eggs over easy, bacon, whole-wheat toast and apple juice from room service. That was for Kerry. Nicholson swallowed a mini Crackle chocolate bar, smoked a couple of cigarettes, then washed down two nut-covered brownies with a Coca-Cola. For lunch and dinner, while the staff scarfs sandwiches and chips, Nicholson finds hot food for Kerry; a local specialty is nice, but a standby is soup and half a chicken with three sides (corn, green beans, mashed potatoes). “Marvin takes care of everything,” Milton Ferrell, Kerry’s Florida fundraiser, said as he introduced him at a reception that afternoon. “He’s the reason Senator Kerry is here and alive.”
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