New old catnip

[whometense]

New for me, anyway - and hopefully new for you too!

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/politics/national/2004race/n_9896/

This part:

John Kerry (Photo credit: Globe Photos)

The roar from the standing ovation is so loud and so strong that it seems to take physical form, lifting and propelling John Kerry through the massive swinging steel doors and into the kitchen of the Greater Richmond Convention Center as if he’s caught the sweet spot of a Banzai Pipeline breaker. It’s Saturday night and Kerry has just spoken to an overflow crowd of 2,500 at the Virginia Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. He followed Al Sharpton, who, as usual, unfurled the best line (“This election isn’t about who you sleep with, but whether you have a job when you wake up in the morning”); Wesley Clark and John Edwards are still to come. But Kerry is the star.

Now he’s veering through the kitchen, shaking hands with startled dishwashers, prep cooks, waitresses. “I need your vote Tuesday!” he tells them, clearly jazzed. “Count on me!” they blurt back. The only person bigger than the six-foot-four-inch Kerry, a mountainous chef named James Morgan, envelops the senator in a hug. Kerry slaps Gordon heartily on the back. It’s a rare moment of spontaneous joy, even if a chilling memory from 1968—an earlier son of Massachusetts, a senator surging toward the Democratic presidential nomination as an unpopular war dragged on, a man leaving behind a cheering crowd and taking a shortcut through a cluster of white-coated kitchen staff—comes unavoidably to mind.

Kerry is moving so fast he’s left his aides behind. He steps into a freight elevator and waits. Suddenly there’s a shout: “Impeach Cheney!” A spindly college-age guy with a wild mop of Carrot Top hair is moving toward Kerry, holding out a Lyndon LaRouche magazine. The cover has a picture of the vice-president casting a Grim Reaper shadow and carries the headline CHILDREN OF SATAN II: THE BEAST-MEN (apparently CHILDREN OF SATAN I was such a hit that a follow-up was required), and this nut has decided to hand-deliver a copy of the magazine to Kerry. “Impeach Cheney!” he squeaks again.

Kerry doesn’t ignore the guy, or laugh him off. “Impeach Cheney?” he yells back. “We don’t have control of the House or the Senate! We can’t impeach Cheney!”

The LaRouchie is backing up. Kerry is pitching forward in his wingtips. “Impeach Cheney?” Kerry yells again, louder. “I’m gonna beat Cheney! I’m gonna beat Cheney!”

Finally, Kerry’s aides scramble into the freight elevator and yank the gate shut. Kerry turns to his wife, who is wide-eyed at the scene. “Impeach Cheney?” Kerry says. “Where do these people learn about government?”

[GRLMGC]

1. haha

freaking LaRouchies. They're so annoying.

[whometense]

2. I love the image of

Kerry leaning towards him and yelling. :D

[GRLMGC]

3. That rules

At convention, there were so many of them. At one point, we kinda started messing with them, haha

[TayTay]

4. That was great!

I wonder what it felt like to appear at those humongous crowd events like the one in Philly or Madison last year. Must have been just amazing. The funny thing is that the campaign appears to have both energized, enervated and, curiously, humbled Kerry. I really think he wants to run again for the busboys and waitresses and other working folk that he met last year. I think that's the real reason for the decision to run. I truly believe that he connected with the regular folks he met on the campaign last year and wants to do it again for them. I think they affected him a great deal.

I have watched him talk about this and rather than detecting bitterness, I detect almost a sense of wonder and deep gratitude about the people who supported him. I thought he was a great candidate in '03. I think he has grown tremendously since then. Isn't that what all our comments about growth and such come down to anyway?

Off topic, but I found a pic for you. Regular John, just out shopping (with sales.) I thought you might like it, as he is just out by himself.

[whometense]

5. love it!

That's what I think too. That he absorbed the anger and despair from the people he met, took upon himself the responsibility to help them, and felt in the end that he'd let them down. I don't think, no matter what mistakes might have been made, that anyone could have worked harder to make that happen. I don't think he owes us anything But I'd be beyond grateful if he's willing to try again.

[politicasista]

9. Thanks for the pic

And yet, people say Bush is a regular guy and so likeable. Yuk!:puke:

[muse]

20. in baggy, pleated pants

Someone send our man some new pants!!!

Other than the pants issue that he has, he is a god.

[JI7]

21. what kind of pants do you want to see him in ?

[TayTay]

22. Jeans

Nice, blue jeans.

[whometense]

23. Ask and ye shall receive. :-)

[fedupinBushcountry]

6. Richmond

My daughter was at the event before the dinner that night. She said they had the pro-lifers with pictures of fetuses in front of the event, and my 21 year old daughter went up to them and gave them a piece of her mind, told them they were disgusting, and that those type of abortions occur rarely and most likely due to the condition of the mother.

She said that the place was so crowded and she wasn't able to get close to Kerry at all, but was so glad she went, brought along a dozen of her college friends, downtown Richmond is college town (VCU).

Yes Kerry won the primary in Virginia, we were a bit worried because of Edwards being from N.C. But I had a feeling that he would pull it off, a week earlier John Edwards had come to Norfolk and had a crowd of 300, Kerry came that Sunday and had a crowd of 1500+. It was the first time I met him, and got a thumbs up from him for my JohnKerry.com sign.

Thanks for the memories.

[whometense]

7. ooh ooh ooh...

just stumbled across my very favorite Kerry story. Don't know why, but I just love it.

Douglas Brinkley
Author of Tour of Duty - John Kerry and the Vietnam War.

…I once was doing an interview with John Kerry in Boston around Christmas. And he had to break it up, and was going to the eye doctor, and said, "You want to come along, and we can continue talking?" And I said sure.

We entered a building in Boston. It was Christmas. And two sanitation workers, maintenance workers in uniform, saw their U.S. Senator John Kerry. They were very thrilled to see their Senator in the flesh. And they walked up to him. And they looked like they were about to go hug him, and Merry Christmas.

Kerry simply bowed. And I thought God, Bill Clinton would've had his arms all around these guys. Merry Christmas, guys. Most politicians would've. And I asked Kerry after he left, I said, "Why were you were so cold to them?" He said, "I respect them too much to go pawing on them. I don't like people grabbing and hugging me, and I don't wanna be that kind of politician. I respect them too much."

I think he feels embarrassed by some of the realities of American politics, which is that over-glad-handing, over-hugging, back-slapping. And so, I think there's a reticence to him. I think some people will see it as aloof. He finds it as being respectful for people. And it's worked for him.

[TayTay]

10. Yeah, I like that one too!

Funny, but I think he is 'huggy' when the situatio calls for it, but not overly so. I like that.

I cannot find this interview I read with Kerry. It was him talking about his constituents in Massachusetts. He spoke of them (us) as being 'so open, and yet so closed.' I think he meant the tendency to say your mind and the other tendency to not getting too much into other people's personal space.

[whometense]

12. I know I'm that way.

Probably that's why I like that story so much. It's a very new England way to be.

I think this is one way last year's campaign might have changed him. I'm not sure he's that way any more. At least, he's less so. Maybe feeling the waves of adoration from those crowds he encountered made him more open. I think gratitude plays a part too.

A serious, driven man might expect love and affection from his family but be surprised to find it coming at him from strangers. I think he started out campaigning on ideas, but it ended as a kind of love affair with the american people.

Gad, that sounds hokey. Sorry, guys! But I hope you get what I mean...

[TayTay]

14. We've only been saying it since Nov!

LOL! Yeah, the whole 'he's changed a bit' thing that we have endlessly commented on. I don't think Kerry was cold before the last campaign. Not at all. I found him lively and funny and very human. But I have found new depths there. I like it. Bill Clinton talks a lot about Bill Clinton now. (And I like Bill Clinton, I'm just not in love with him.) John Kerry talks less and less about John Kerry. He has not had many interviews where he is lamenting what happened to John Kerry. He has had a lot to say about how bad it is for working people in America. I know he was a good Dem before. This campaign made him a better one.

I really, really hope that comes out in his book. Based on the snippets of writing that were in Tour of Duty Kerry has a fascinting way of viewing the world. I would hope to see some of that and see what his own personal insights into America are like.

[whometense]

8. That page is FULL of catnip

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2004/kerry/core.html

John Vallely
Veteran of several Kerry campaigns.

…You have said that John needs a kind of tension to be at his best. That part of him needs the high wire act. And that even in his marriage with Teresa, this is true. That it benefits him, because of a certain healthy tension that exists. And that he's best when his back is against the wall.

You know, he likes danger. Okay? I think he likes physical danger. I mean, he enjoys-- he's a very active person. And he drives too fast, he drives the boat too fast. He's always on the go. He's a little jittery. "When are we getting there?" He's not always great to travel with. "When is the bus arriving?" In high form. I mean, he' s got his energy. He's--

He's type A.

Built-up energy, okay? And it's always better when he's working it, than getting it-- you know, pent up in him. He's also very calm person. He does not get angry easily. I've never really seen him really angry. I think he becomes calmer the more tension there is around. And I think he becomes much calmer. I think it's one of those things that's -- one of his great abilities, is to be calm. Now, he's not normally calm. He's normally a pain in the ass. Okay? But when they lock and load, he's super. He can focus. …

[TayTay]

11. I like that, normally a pain in the ass.

Vallely must be a friend or staffer. I have heard that Kerry can be a difficult person to work for because you can't get away with anything. He expects staff to present him with all the sides of an argument so that he can choose which arguments to take. All of his former staffers seem to like him though and they deeply respect his intellect.

And then there's Marvin. He has to be the most even-tempered guy ever. I wonder if he is a steadying influence. He's just always there with his bag of stuff.

[whometense]

13. Marvin seems like

a cross between a stand-up comedian and a kind of goyish buddha. Serene, but in a goofy way. I bet that is a great match for Kerry's jittery energy. And the humor defuses tension.

[TayTay]

15. I want Marvin to have a book deal some day

Say in 2016. "Chief of Stuff, The Marvin Story."

[whometense]

16. I'd buy that book!!!

He must have a million great stories to tell!

[fedupinBushcountry]

17. WOW !!!

First time I read that, and I thought I read everthing about JK.

You know the more I read about JK, and especially Tour of Duty, the more you find a bit of yourself in him. Oh by the way he is definitely a Navy man, I laughed so much when I read the Navy talk in the book, my husband was in the Navy 20 years so I knew the language well.My closest encounter with him one on one I could feel the respect he had for me, he connects so easily when he looks directly in to your eyes, there is no put on,and it comes so easy to show him the respect you have for him. The man cares about his country and his fellow countrymen and women. This country is missing out on so much without him in the WH, he so deserves to be there, he has given his whole life to his country to make it better. I think I will go cry now.

[sandnsea]

18. ha! That's good

"Where do these people learn about government?" :rofl:

[ginnyinWI]

19. thanks for the great thread, you guys!

Stuff I hadn't read before.

I have to disagree with the guy who said JK is "type A", because that is a very angry, thin-skinned type--someone who loses their temper a lot--at least that's what I understand. Someone who works themself into high blood pressure and heart disease! I think JK is very active, but in control and able to focus incredibly well. Becomes calmer the more tension is around him, like the other post said.

My 25 year old son is like this so I understand it (he's another Saggitarius). Very energetic, active, hard-working and able to focus (he's a computer-animation artist), but at the same time very upbeat, good-humored and friendly. He is slow to anger, and when he does get mad, there is no sign of temper--he stays so rational that you sometimes miss the fact that he's angry at all.