I think this is what I've meant by 'there has been a change'

[TayTay]

You know, I keep burying the lead whenever I post here. There was a time, a few months ago, when Whome and I were talking about a change in Senator Kerry that slowly took effect last year. (We have had semi-pissy disagreements over this with non-Massholes.) Other people have countered that he has always been a good Dem and has been a great advocate for the poor and the middle class. My world-class come-back was, 'Yeah, but something's different. I swear, there's something added that wasn't there before, but I can't put my finger on it in exact terms."

Anyway, I was aimlessly trolling around in the archives again (because I have to learn this new searching thing and well, hell, why not) when I found some old articles, some good, some phoned-in and scripted. I also found this great, great quote and the light bulb finally went on above my head, "That's it! That's what's different."

In a July, 2001 article in The Nation, written by David Corn I found the following quote:

A longtime friend says, "He has been frustrating to those around him who have hoped for bolder progressive positions. His record--the war, BCCI--shows he cares about righting injustice. But he does not sufficiently understand the level of economic injustice that exists in this society. If his passion for justice finds its way into the economics of working- and middle-class Americans, he will be a very powerful candidate."

I think what I've been sensing, and not been able to put into words for people unfamiliar with Kerry before last year, was what's in that last line. Kerry has always been good on the issues. (I found all those old Boston Globe endorsements that almost read like love letters, "Dear John: We love you muchly, Please move in with us. Love the OpEd Board." ) But it was more academic, more of a position formed in the head. I think the campaign and being out on the road an away from comfy Massachusetts made Sen. Kerry a better Democrat, a better listener and a better politician. The sentence that says if he can marry that compulsion to seek justice into the economic realm, then Wow! I think he has. I hear the difference in the speeches he's giving now.

Hey, Whome, what do you think?

[ginnyinWI]

1. so what you are saying:

He's been personally connected with all of these people and heard all of these stories and has made an emotional connection. Like in 1971, when he was passionate about ending the war because of his own experiences. It's not only in his head now, it's in his heart.

[TayTay]

2. I genuinely think the experience has changed him

And has made it's way into how he expresses himself. It's different. I just couldn't figure out how. Yeah, I do sense that passion. And the times have changed. The Democrats in general have changed as well. The DLC era is passing. I always think of that as the era of the Business-Dems and I can't help thinking that a lot of DLC Dems found passion to be passe and oh so left-over '60's-ish.' I had a quote from Kerry in a '96 article that read:

For at bottom, to understand who Kerry is is to return to the war and the fight against it, and to ask where all that passion is now. "I think it is still there, " the senator says, citing "children and economic fairness" as his chief concerns today. "But you know, it is a different time. People don't allow for that sort of thing. That sort of thing -- I mean passion -- is somehow more suspicious today." -- Boston Globe 10-6-1996.

I just read the speech he gave at the Head Start conference. It's different than the 90's speeches. It's more personal and invokes more stories from people who have either met him or written to him about their problems. It's more, ahm, passionate and involved and less technical.

What do you think?

[ginnyinWI]

3. I just read it too

I think passion is making a comeback. The reason? What Bush has done to this country, and how he has turned his back on people in need. Dems need to get passionate and rally to the cause again. When Clinton was president in the 90s, things were being addressed, and prosperity was growing for everyone. Sadly not anymore. The government is now saying, "you're on your own, kid".

[whometense]

5. I think that's true.

It's more than that too. Like all of us, I've been watching the senators pretty intently. Just now, with the campaign over, they have the reality of two terms of arrogant nitwittery to deal with, the political aftermath of the Iraq adventure is starting to sink in, and the full scope of what the repugs and the * cabal intend to do to us is starting to dawn.

Each has to handle it in their own way, but I see Kerry doing a slow burn. The rules of government they have all operated by for years (except for the brash asshole newcomers like Allen and Coleman) require politeness and a certain amount of trust. It's easier for us to see from the outside, but it's taken a long time for them to start to come to grips with this new reality. I see Kerry as very angry, and maybe grappling with how to effectively channel his rage in a positive way. It's a struggle. You don't want to marginalize yourself as the "angry guy", but he also has to say what he thinks and feels - it's his job.

Teddy has always been able to just get up and yell - that works for him. Not normally Kerry's style. He's more the type to ice you with his eyes. So I think we're seeing that struggle too.

What do you guys think?

[LittleClarkie]

6. And every once in a while, he can't contain it any more

and we get those occasionally angry speeches. I loved it when he was talking about Voinovich and Chafee and how Chafee said he'd never seen a Senator do what he did. I loved Kerry's "WHAT!? You've never seen a Senator STOP and THINK!?"

I love it when he gets angry.

Hoo boy. I think sometimes I really do identify him with my dad. Navy. Decent guy but with a temper. This Memorial Day was esp. hard for some reason.

[elshiva]

20. He is very sexy when he is angry, too...

[ginnyinWI]

10. Righteous indignation

has always been JK's style--back in 1971 and now. Standing up for what this country is supposed to be. He's not a brawler like Teddy--he's more of a debater--arguing with incisive arguments.

There is an article by Alexander Cockburn in the latest Nation where he complains that none of the Dems have the "fire in the belly" that Galloway showed when he blasted Norm Coleman--so thinks that nothing will change. But being a senator means having to maintain enough credibility to work with the other side of the aisle. So it has to be controlled and channeled. So I think JK is doing fine.

[whometense]

4. How did I miss this post?

Sorry - been kinda awol. The David Corn quote is a great find. I totally agree with what you're saying. I'd been framing it in my mind as him reconnecting with what drove him into politics in the first place - outrage at the injustice of the Vietnam war, but I like your frame better.

I think the campaign put his back up against the wall. I would never accuse him of arrogance, because I don't think he has a drop of it in him. But he was so clearly the best qualified candidate at the beginning of the race. Then came his surgery, then Dean Dean Dean, then the fundraising drying up and months of nothing but bad news, and he was behind. One of the Myths of Kerry is the "strong closer" one, and I know it's been endlessly discussed. But I think a combination of being kicked around for months by the campaign and getting out in the field to do the gritty face to face work really did change him.

Again, I've seen a lot of people say it humanized him. I think that's a load of crap. He was plenty human to begin with. But it did exercise his listening faculties and put him in a lot of rooms with people-who-were-not-senators.

Kerry is a real intellectual, and as such spends a lot of time in his own head (a fascinating place, there is no doubt.) The campaign got him out of his head and into the fields.

[TayTay]

7. I agree that the campaign was humanizing

It was also eye-opening. My sister makes this drive from Telluride, CO to Boston four or five times a year. (She loves it. A 2,000 mile trip to her is nothing.) When she stopped to talk to me she berated me for being a 'comfy Masshole' (again. Apparently I am one of God's Chosen People when it comes to being lectured. People see me, see that sympathetic liberal face and decide to unload on me. Sigh! It's my lot in life.)

My sister's point was that the Northeast has pockets of woe, but it is also an incredibly rich area. She noticed it in the drive. She tried to remind me, ungently, that I am spoiled and that I need to get out more and see what it's really like and how bad it is for some folks. (And to remember not to be condescending and to be a listener and to .... Geez, I am really that walking stereotype of a MA lib? Damn. I hate that.)

Point being that getting out on the road may have also been an eye-opener for Sen. Kerry. (He was a great lib senator before. I really believe he is an even better one now. There is something added that is just better and I am loving it.) That lovely quote I found was a reminder that Kerry's forte is that seething sense of injustice and the anger at having been lied to about his government and their intentions in foreign policy. I think the possibilities in the end of that quote are coming about. And that should be a sight to see.

[sandnsea]

8. "They like me"

"They really really like me". If we MUST insist the campaign did something to John Kerry :), I'd say he finally KNOWS every day people like him, hell LOVE him. I would bet any politician hopes they can win without baring their soul. Who wants to risk the rejection? I think JK is actually very sensitive to rejection and "being liked". Not enough to be a people pleaser, but certainly enough to be reserved. The campaign forced him to put himself out there, to all sorts of people. And he discovered people "get him", and LIKE him. And that has liberated him.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

[whometense]

9. I really like that.

And "They like me" has come into my head too.

He really does have that odd (for such a public figure), sweet kind of personal shyness. People like his ideas and his integrity. But I think seeing him up close also conveys his humility, which is very appealing.

[TayTay]

11. Oh Good Lord, it's not a Mad Scientist movie

Geez, not like that. We meant that there was an deepening of commitment and more passion in the speeches. (And more focus.) It didn't fundamentally alter what was already there. Gracious woman, you make it sound like some bad Mad Scientist movie. (Throw the switch, now.)

It has nothing to do with people liking him. I went through the archive of stories that predated the run (say from Jan 2001 to Sept 2003) and there were a ton of dreary articles that said drivel about 'cold' and 'aloof.' This was pablum and idiotic and scripted. I had very little patience with it. (It was all pre-written stuff. Article after dreary article that said the same damn stupid thing. All of it uninteresting and untrue.) I think the pundits didn't like him. The people like him just fine. Anything else is bunk.

[sandnsea]

12. I don't see it

I don't see one more ounce of passion or deepening of commitment from the beginning of the primary to today. I just do not see it. The only thing I see is somebody who is comfortable, who knows he connects with people all across the country. When you've had it drilled in your head that regular people don't like prep school snobs, it's got to be a little disconcerting. He figured out it's crap and that's the only difference you see in him. Nothing Mad Scientist about it, it's actually just plain old human nature.

[TayTay]

13. Agree to disagree

I am thinking that what I am seeing predates the primaries. (Cooler) That might just be the rub.

[kerrygoddess]

17. "from Jan 2001 to Sept 2003"

"I went through the archive of stories that predated the run (say from Jan 2001 to Sept 2003) and there were a ton of dreary articles that said drivel about 'cold' and 'aloof.' This was pablum and idiotic and scripted. I had very little patience with it. (It was all pre-written stuff. Article after dreary article that said the same damn stupid thing. All of it uninteresting and untrue.) I think the pundits didn't like him. The people like him just fine. Anything else is bunk."

Simple explanation to this... The Republican Noise Machine was already at work. HELLO! They've been at it with Kerry as long as Kerry has been in the public eye. Look back all through his career. Kerry has always been a huge threat to the right and they have been building their control of the media for years.

[beachmom]

14. Not so different in many ways from 1970s

A lot of people complained that Kerry no longer had passion like he did when he was protesting the war. (Whoopie Goldberg talked about that on Real Time) Actually, when I watched "Goint Upriver" I found a lot of characteristics in him then that are still true now. One of the oldest clips of him, back in 1965 I think, when he was talking about deciding to go to Vietnam, he was pretty wordy, but sincere, talking about how you ultimately have to decide within yourself. He had moments back then of succinct, amazing sentences coupled with more wordy, technical ones. Kind of like now! I still say it helps a pol to actually get out there in the country to see how people are doing face to face. * refuses to do that, which is why we all find him infinitely more infuriating than Reagan, who always maintained a sincere common touch, even if we disliked many of his policies.

It is tough to "get" what's going on if you only stay in Washington and go to dinner parties with other pols, lawyers, lobbyists, etc. And that's for either party regardless of the issues at hand. I think JK is more in touch with America than almost all the other guys in the Senate, even if he is blessed with privilege. He remembers "the people" who touched his life for a year, which is why I think he loves having town hall meetings still. He needs us to keep his feet on the ground.

By the way, I think the "love" goes both ways. When I think back to his concession speech, the moments when his voice cracked were when he talked about the people who supported him -- the little girl who gave him a jar of coins, the people who volunteered for him (I wish I could put my arms around you all). He didn't get emotional about HIS loss or the political ramifications of *'s win. He got emotional about the people out there who reached out to him. That was the moment for me when the human being John Kerry was revealed to me.

[whometense]

15. Yes.

It's also helpful to remember - even though you won't find many in the media helping with this - Kerry's actual history.

He wasn't raised rich, though he spent plenty of time in close proximity to people who were rich. He was a member of the Teamsters Union in high school, and worked at least one summer loading trucks in Somerville, MA, as blue collar a town at that time as you could find anywhere.

He has plenty of money now, but he was not born with the proverbial silver spoon. There was an interesting article written about his youth by Franklin Foer for The New Republic during the campaign. Relevant quote (but the whole thing is good):

Kerry may have had a moneyed pedigree, but he didn't have money. By the time the Forbes family fortune reached his mother, it had been subdivided into an extremely modest sum. (Kerry's mother, Rosemary, who trained to be a nurse, was one of eleven children.) Nor was his father's Foreign Service salary robust enough to foot the school's exorbitant tuition. Kerry attended St. Paul's thanks to the beneficence of his childless great-aunt, Clara Winthrop, who volunteered to cover the costs. "We weren't rich," Kerry's sister Diana told The Boston Globe last summer. Or, as Joe Klein put it in The New Yorker, Kerry's family belonged to "a threadbare, erstwhile aristocracy."

Under most circumstances, and in most U.S. settings, Kerry's shabby gentility would not have disadvantaged him. But St. Paul's was an extremely status-conscious place. As Brinkley writes in his biography, "At St. Paul's, unless you had a lot of money and wore the right clothes and had parents who belonged to the right clubs, you could be made to feel inadequate, born on the wrong side of the tracks." Fitting in--to be a "reg," or regular guy, as the St. Paul's kids said--meant having the right pair of loafers, the right Brooks Brothers suit, and the right ring belt. Kerry certainly dressed the preppy part. But there were obvious ways in which he could not keep up. While his classmates summered in Europe (or even took private jets to the Continent for long weekends), Kerry spent his breaks working as a Teamster in Somerville, Massachusetts, for the First National Stores, loading food onto trucks. He frequently borrowed money from friends. And, if his relative poverty weren't apparent enough, Kerry always had richer classmates issuing reminders of their bigger bank accounts. Barbiero recounted to me a symbolic incident. One of Kerry's poorer classmates had carefully compiled a record collection that was his proudest possession--and everyone in the school knew it. But a rich classmate couldn't stomach the satisfaction felt by Kerry's friend, so he ventured into Concord and bought out the record store. According to Barbiero, Kerry empathized with the collector. "John was upset about this and thought it was a nasty thing to do."

[TayTay]

16. Yes, yes, yes

The DLC years for the Dems were all about the technicals of governing. They were not about the passion. They were about 52 different talking points on why one position was academically good and so forth. But politics is about people, not position papers. (Hell, Dems are great at putting out brilliant position papers. All our pols are smart and slightly wonky. This part is expected.)

What I wanted to see in Kerry, I saw. The guy knew, especially in the last months, (not only but especially, he grew as the nominee) that it was about that woman in NH who had to keep working through Chemo so she wouldn't lose her health insurance. It was about that woman in WI who told him she was so tired about always saying no to her kids because there was no extra money after paying the bills. It's about the people and their problems. I saw less of the technocrat and more of the politician.

I like real politicians. I have known some good ones. They have risked careers, marriages and homes in order to step up and say, I see something worng and I can help. They don't do it for the ego trip or the perks, not at their core. They do because they have to. It's in their souls. It defines them and gives them a purpose in the world. I saw that again in Kerry and I see it still. So hope me Gawd to my cynical core, I see it still.

[kerrygoddess]

18. He's not so different now from the 70's or ever IMHO

I've watched Kerry's career since the 70's when he came from Vietnam. IMHO he's got the same passion now that he did then. he carried that passion into the DA's office, into the Lt Gov's office and then the Senate.

He's always been genuine and always cared but the media has always painted him differently.

People from MA are often accused of being cold, but what people tend to call cold is actually a sense of being more reserved sometimes. And proper. And it's not just the Boston Blue Bloods who are like that. Many of the old Yankee families have that way about them.

The human-ess has always been for there for JK. I saw it personally many times during the campaign. Like when he bounded off the stage in NH to thank me for coming from CA to volunteer for the primary. he was touched that I was there.

This stuff never gets reported and it's a damn shame.

[kerrygoddess]

19. Personally I think it's a shame

That David Corn and other leftist pundits play up the right's talking points about Kerry and always have. Let alone these unnamed "longtime friends" of JK's.

The John Kerry I have always known has always been well loved by people from MA. As a former Masshole (not a term of endearment IMHO), with friends and family still there, I say this with the confidence of understanding people from MA.

Sure we saw people from all over the country connect with JK in the past year or two and their opinions of him changed. Imagine how tough it must have been for him to not only counter the right-wing's talking points about him, but also the fact that many on the left used the same damn talking points.

Like politician there are good speeches, not so good speeches and awesome speeches. Kerry's always stood up and fought for the little people, just look at his Senate record, that's evident. It's evident in his floor speeches throughout his career as well.

[TayTay]

21. Geez, I like it as a term of endearment

I just do. It actually refers to Massachusetts drivers as seen by New Hampshire drivers. But, I kind of like it. Of course, I also like terms like, Founders of the Nation, Progressive Capital of the World, Conscience of America and Cradle of Liberty as well. That sort of does complete the picture. We are those things as well. (Sh*t, I think I just bragged. Oh well, it had to happen sooner or later. Screw it, I like it.)

One of the things I like about Kerry is that he reflects the values of Massachusetts pretty well. I have heard all the crap about him being an elitist Brahmin (of which there aren't any. They all died out years ago. The friggin Brahmins were conservatives who wanted to hold power in the hands of a few, not populists who wanted to extend power to all the people. Geez, the stereotype is all wrong and boneheaded.) Okay, he's the goo-goos meet the populists, but that's an excellent mix. (Goo-goos are good government people, as opposed to machine politics people.)

RW Apple, NY Times correspondent, described Boston as being almost beyond time. It is, after all, celebrating it's 375 Birthday this year. He said the two constants about the area are ideas and the accent. (To him, the accent sounds like 'a brick-throated bullfrog'. LOL!) The city has seen booms and busts a dozen times and is still here, still pumping out college kids and ideas. Anybody who doesn't like it can bite me. I am a Masshole, grumpy at times, a little starry-eyed at others and passionate about democracy, expanding the definition of liberty to mean all the friggin people all the friggin time and making sure that the least among us have economic as well as civil rights. If this be Massachusetts liberalism, then I aim to make the best of it and Rethug regressives who want to down my home state can kiss my hairy ass. (end of rant. I think I needed that.)

[whometense]

22. I like it too.

When used with affection it implies a whole range of qualities which in a certain way define aspects of MA life.

I wouldn't want just anyone on the street to call me a Masshole, but TayTay can anytime. I consider it an honor.

[kerrygoddess]

23. Here's an interesting link about the history of the Boston Brahmins

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Boston-Brahmin

There's a complete lineage tree there. Not all of the Brahmins were conservatives, but their history is enmeshed not only in the history of MA but the East Coast and much of the U.S. Kerry is a Brahmin in heritage only.

I suppose spending 33 years living on the MA/NH border, I might have a different view of the term of endearment.

There's no place like Boston for history or culture. The other great cities of our country will never come close.