question about Kerry and 1996 election, especially Mass people

[JI7]

while i have read about how close the race was and how Kerry kicked ass in the debates and came out ahead i still haven't looked into why it was close in the first place.

i know Bill Weld was very popular and i'm sure that had something to do with it. were there any issues between Kerry and the people of Mass?

[whometense]

1. As far as I can remember,

and TayTay can correct me on this if I'm wrong, there weren't any particular issues between Kerry and the people of the state. People (at least, a lot of them) were charmed by Weld. I saw him as an overprivileged and over-age frat boy, myself. Kerry was a somewhat formal and distant figure here to those who hadn't been following him for years, and I think underappreciated. Don't forget he was seen in contrast to Teddy, who is the ultimate face-to-face crowd rousing pol. Not Kerry's style.

That's my take, for what it's worth.

Oh, and one other thing - don't forget the Globe and Herald had both been badmouthing Kerry for years, so a lot of people who had no personal knowledge of him had taken on some of their attitude towards him.

[JI7]

2. the interesting thing about that

is from watching cspan campaign events i thought Kerry came across the best on a personal level. i love how he usually has physical contact with the person he is speaking to such as putting his arm around them or holding their hand.

i guess if you are speaking of speeches in front of mass audiences, yeah Kennedy is always good at that as are some others like Bill Clinton. and Kerry is good at times also but he can have days which aren't so good.

but on an individual personal level Kerry is wonderful. i think Kerry is more of a town hall type person .

[whometense]

3. I totally agree,

but he has changed and evolved into that role over the years. I wouldn't say it came easily to him. It's who he is a person, but he's had to learn to be that way in public. If you read about his early years, as a sensitive kid away from his family at school, he learned to protect himself by being reserved. Many people believe that marrying Teresa was the biggest factor in helping him to be more open.

[TayTay]

4. It was a deathmatch between two heavy-weight Champs

WARNING: Extreme Mass snarkiness follows. Read at your own risk.

ONE COLUMNIST'S DREAM COME TRUE
Boston Globe, THIRD, Sec. METRO, p 41 12-03-1995
By Globe Staff Mike Barnicle

I am getting increasingly concerned about the pace of the election fight between Bill Weld and John Kerry. Unless they adopt a more measured approach, the two of them will look like crash dummies by St. Patrick's Day, and there will be nothing left for me.

Already, Weld and Kerry make the Serbs and Muslims look like they're playing kissy-face in Bosnia. They came out scratching like a couple of fishwives, throwing a month's worth of ashcans in only five days time.

Puh-leez! Slow down! Save your strength! Your vocal cords will be gone by Christmas and we'll have to hire interpreters to follow you.

But what could be better than this? Two rich, incredibly Caucasian Ivy League fellows going from the Berkshires to the Bourne Bridge expressing their wonderful, bone-deep hatred for each other as they swish into taverns shouting, "A round of Campari and soda for the house. On me," while spilling so much invective the EPA will have to monitor the air around them.

This race means only one thing: I can take next summer off and simply mail in stuff that starts with Kerry or Weld saying, "I think he is a flaming. . . ."

Marvelous.

Some observers were surprised when the governor decided to go for the Senate seat. But when you think about it, the signs were there: Weld has been bummed since his idol Jerry Garcia got gratefully dead after practically offing himself, so the only way he can honor the man's memory is by going to Washington to "rock on" with other brainy Republicans like Rep. Sonny Bono.

Then there's the weight thing. When Weld is feeling lazy and bored -- about 22 hours a day -- he eats so much that he looks like a cross between Rosemary Clooney and Dom DeLuise. To him, running for the US Senate is the equivalent of going on Tommy Lasorda's diet: a bottle of Jack Daniels per day and a sensible meal at dusk. As governor, he got so fat he looked like he was chowing down on helium and his own kids were calling him William "The Refrigerator" Weld.

Kerry has no weight problem. Forever, he has been thin as a waiter, puts food away with both hands and still has absolutely no midruff bulge and no swollen arse either. True WASP look.

But the best part of this fight is neither man will waste any time telling the truth or talking about issues. It'll be one solid stream of venom.

Kerry will suggest that Weld and Gingrich have probably been lovers for five years because the governor is enthralled with the idea that the speaker wears fishnet stockings and women's underwear beneath those boat covers the Georgia loudmouth uses for suits. Weld, meanwhile, will charge that Kerry has personally delivered $27 million to huge welfare bust-outs with 67 Social Security numbers who used the cash to take trips and put their children into prep schools.

***********************************

Yeah, it was like that. And this was almost a year before the election. You can't have a Fight for the Heavy-Weight Championship of Massachusetts without both fighters being in tip-top shape. You had Weld, Harvard man, recently re-elected with some of the highest numbers ever recorded in the Commonwealth against John Kerry, Yale man, who punched out all those rivals in '84, slapped that kid Rappaport around in '90 before flattening him at the polls and taking the only contestable Senate seat in MA for himself.

In order for a Championship fight to be good, it has to involve two people who are pretty evenly matched. These guys were both 'wicked, wicked smaht' (Weld is a summa cum laude grad of Hahvid, Mr. Kerry is one of the smahtest guys on CapHill.) Both guys had to have the 'fire in the belly' that would show they had the will and strength to duke it out for 15 months or so that it took. (This race began in July of '95 when word seeped out that Weld was bored with being Gov and wanted a challenge.)

There is nothing, besides a Red Sox win, that MA likes more than a real political fight among guys who are pretty evenly matched. That's what made it a deathmatch and a Championship prize fight. Those are very rare occurrences, usually incumbents just breeze in. Not this time. It was one hell of a fun race. (And the best man, who wanted it more, won.)

Please note the press coverage. Barnicle was a bit out there, but this was the tone of the coverage and, still sort of is. We don't pull punches in MA. There were gooey, nice and serious articles published then, but the race was just too much fun to not have at it like Barnicle did above. My fav race of all time, because it was so hotly contested.

EDITORIAL OK guys, make us proud
Boston Herald, First, Sec. Editorial, p 46 11-30-1995


There are few things quite so exciting as a political race in which issues and approaches and philosophies are debated by two articulate candidates with fine minds and healthy egos.

So pardon us if we - without endorsing his candidacy - applaud the entry of Gov. William Weld into the race for John Kerry's Senate seat.

Too often a strong incumbent - and make no mistake about it, Kerry is certainly that - gets a virtual free ride from the opposition party. And in a state where the Democratic Party has long been dominant in voter registration, and still overwhelms self-declared Republicans, that may be a perfectly logical inclination.

However, the result is a frustrated and sometimes alienated electorate - and an electorate which in recent years has registered in ever-increasing numbers as "Independent."

The other down-side of a lack of political combat is an incumbent who becomes intellectually flabby and remote from his constituency.

Rest assured, dear voters, that won't be the case next year in a Weld-Kerry match-up.

Weld will have to use the bully pulpit of his current office not to make campaign speeches but to persuade voters he has the conviction to follow through on the host of ideas he is forever advancing. Follow-through hasn't been Weld's strong suit. Wary voters will need to see more.

And John Kerry will be tested as he has rarely been. Kerry too has made some tough speeches designed to advance his image as a New Democrat - the kind of New Democrat Bill Clinton wanted us to think he was. But his voting record hasn't always squared with that image. Now the intellectual and philosophical challenge of a Weld candidacy will force him to tell voters exactly what kind of Democrat he is and intends to be in the years ahead.

This kind of contest ought not to cost either candidate truckloads of campaign dollars. Let's face it, neither one of these guys is shy, neither lacks for name recognition, and both have the ability to use their incumbencies to discuss issues.

Ah, issues! It's obvious candidates can talk issues for free. But too often they have done that and then used campaign funds for the worst negative ads money can buy. Weld's negative ads against an already totally overwhelmed Mark Roosevelt in the last gubernatorial race were quite simply gratuitous.

This is a contest that all the nation will be watching. We hope the combatants will make it one of which they and their constituents will be proud.

You can read it in that Herald story, this was a race worth the time and effort. It was fun, dammit.

[blm]

5. Weld was extremely popular, while Kerry had just been pummeled by stories

planted against him by operatives working for BushInc since he entered the Senate.

Remember, when Kerry was exposing IranContra and BCCI, BushInc fought back by stating he was a "conspiracy theory nut" and labeling him "Liveshot" as if he was only trying to get camera time instead of doing serious investigation.

[TayTay]

6. Yeah, but it was a great race.

You know, it's a good thing to be challenged and to have to defend yourself every so often. Kerry was an even better Senator after this and learned lessons that he still respects today. (He was a good Senator to begin with, but the competition brought out the fighter in him and he got better.)

Massachusetts hated the Rethugs in Congress back then. Kerry tied Weld to Gingrich in Congress. (Who was spectacularly unpopular in MA.) Kerry is a Dem and he began to re-emphasize that in Dem-sympathetic MA. Weld came off as a great Governor, but not serious enough or committed enough to represent Massachusetts in the Senate. Faced with two smart guys up close, the electorate went with the guy who wanted it more and who made more sense. Kerry fought like hell for that race, it was far from a certainty. People saw that and really, really liked it. (Mass loves a fighter. Kerry gained a lot of respect from a lot of whiners in MA who thought he had grown unresponsive in the Senate. Well, that lie went by the boards in '06.)

[blm]

7. I know...it was an amazing thing to watch. I lived in LA at the time

and watched every debate between them on Cspan.

I wished that EVERY race could be decided between two well-informed candidates presenting themselves AS intelligent beings instead of the dumbed down soundbite wars we have had for so long now.

[TayTay]

8. And it was funny. (I know, I know, but that's part of what made

it a great race.) The eight debates were a bit much, but damn that was interesting. Every damn cliche that could be brought out to talk about Brahmins came out of the dusty closet. Every shopworn cliche about 'fight club' came out. And every one was a damn pundit and free to offer advise to these guys.

I remember one debate at Mechanics Hall in Worcester that was so much fun. There were hundreds of people outside the hall with signs and the groups were yelling at each other. (Non-combatants were ordered to take their fight elsewhere. We have a debate going on and side disagreements will have to be settled elsewhere.) It was snarky as hell and that was part of it's chahm.

[blm]

9. It was pure dessert for those who consider policy talk and debate as their

food of choice.

[TayTay]

10. I love this talk.

I am geeky as hell. This conversation proves it. That was an issues-dominated contest. I found that pure fun. I guess it looked like, ahm, an issues-dominated serious discussion from afar.

Same thing, only different, as my son would say. I knew both guys had the mental chops (that was a given) but did they have the heart and stamina to have at it for 15 months. Pretty much yes, but Kerry more so than Weld, who kind of got bored and off messagea at the end.