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Sen. John Kerry
(Photo:
AP
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Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts has spent 18 years in the U.S. Senate. He formally announced his candidacy for the White House on Sept. 2, 2003.
Kerry, a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, made his name in the early 1970s as a leading war protester. (Even then, his presidential ambitions were evident to cartoonist and fellow Yale grad Garry Trudeau, who parodied Kerry in a series of Doonesbury cartoons at the time.) Kerry went on to receive a law degree from Boston College, and served as an assistant district attorney from 1977 to 1982, and then lieutenant governor from 1983 until he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984. He lost a congressional race in 1972.
In the Senate, Kerry has focused on foreign affairs. A liberal, Kerry has backed bills on gun control, protection of abortion rights and is a vocal opponent of the death penalty. (That stance could become an issue in the 2004 race, as it has in almost every presidential campaign in recent memory.) He has also criticized President Bush's tax cut plans.
On Iraq, Kerry's record is a bit muddled. He voted against giving George H.W. Bush authority to use force in the first Gulf War, but backed the current President Bush in November 2002. In January, Kerry criticized Bush's foreign policy approach as overly unilateral – and questioned whether force, in the end, should be used against Saddam Hussein. He then came out in February and said force might have to be used.
Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, could prove to be a double-edged political sword for his presidential campaign. The widow of late Pennsylvania Republican Sen. John Heinz, she is worth upwards of $600 million – and has not ruled out spending personal resources on Kerry's campaign. At the same time, Heinz Kerry is a famously independent-minded woman who has a habit of speaking her mind – particularly during media interviews – in a way that could prove difficult for Kerry's campaign.
In January, Kerry finally got the public backing of Massachusetts' senior senator, Ted Kennedy, who had flirted with backing John Edwards. In the end, Kennedy took the easy political road of backing a home state colleague. He said he expects Kerry to be a strong candidate who'll win the White House next fall. On the key fundraising front, Kerry entered the presidential nomination race with more than $3.1 million from his Senate re-election campaign war chest – nearly three times the amount of his nearest Democratic rival.
In the beginning of 2003, he was beginning to be viewed as the race's frontrunner. In addition, he had two surprises: he was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Dec. 24, 2002, and The Boston Globe reported that Kerry's grandfather was Jewish. He had his prostate removed on Feb. 12, 2003. Campaign aides, and his doctors, say the surgery should have no long-term effects on either his health or his campaign.
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