The New Kerry

The Nation: Kerry Makes Up His Mind About The 2008 Election

(The Nation) 
Which prompts the question, "Why now?" Pollster Frank Luntz recently showed a focus group of Democratic primary voters in Iowa and New Hampshire footage of Kerry over the past few months.

"Where the hell was this John Kerry?" Luntz says the voters asked him. "Why didn't he have this passion, this specificity, when we needed him to?" If Kerry had run in 2004 using his 2006 language, Luntz argues, he might be president now.

Kerry has internalized much of this criticism. "You get kicked on your ass, you get knocked flat, you dust yourself off and say, 'OK. What did I learn from that?' " Kerry tells me. "I think I learned a lot."

His endless modifiers have been replaced by short, punchy phrases: "Tell the truth, fire the incompetents, get out of Iraq, have healthcare for all Americans." He shocked Chris Matthews in a recent interview by answering some questions with just a yes or a no. His new mantra, says Kerry, is "clarity and brevity."

But policy and rhetoric only partly explain Kerry's resurgence. His 3 million-plus e-mail list and the $7.5 million he's given or raised for fellow Democrats since 2004, by far the most of any 2008 contender, solidifies his standing in the party. He even raised $150,000 for Hillary Clinton at a Boston fundraiser last year. Two top operatives from the DNC are overseeing his PAC, Keeping America's Promise.

He's visited 24 states and donated to 110 candidates this election cycle alone. "Kerry's Cash May Buy '08 Loyalty" reads a recent headline in Roll Call.

The presidency is never far from his mind. He freely admits to "thinking hard" about running again.

"I have an anger, a level of frustration about the failure of the public sector, that is as burning as when I first got involved in the 1960s," Kerry says.

In March he returned to New Hampshire for his first full day of political campaigning, later penning an op-ed defending the state's first-in-the-nation primary status. In early May he was back in the Hawkeye State, speaking at a local college and fundraising for Iowa Democrats.

"That's someone who's running," says former Kerry campaign strategist and Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart.

To bolster his national profile, Kerry is launching a think tank — helmed by Gary Hart — to train the next generation of progressive foreign-policy thinkers; coming out with a book on the environment this fall; and scheduling a full plate of political events before the 2006 midterms.

But Kerry's future cannot be separated from his past.

"Democrats have to be willing to give him another hard look," says Grossman. "It's a very, very tough hill to climb."

Kerry trails Hillary Clinton 57 to 30 percent among Democrats in a head-to-head matchup, faring worse than his former running mate, John Edwards. He runs no better than 3 percent in online straw polls like MYDD.com. Grassroots Democrats don't want to nominate a previous loser, but if they did, there's always Al Gore.

"The first step of Kerry's new campaign," says Brinkley, "is to answer the questions Democrats had about the last one."


Ari Berman, based in Washington, D.C., is a contributing writer for The Nation, a contributor to The Notion and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute.