AS the single-engine Beechcraft airplane plunged down, picking up speed, John Kerry said, "Give it to me."It was the late 1960s, and Kerry and two Navy buddies had rented the plane for an off-duty fun trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
 | The plane lost control, and Kerry, who had earned his pilot license at Yale University, worried aloud that the wings would pull off. He insisted on taking control.
"He slowly pulled it out ... not that far off the ground,"remembers one of the men in the plane, longtime Kerry personal friend David Thorne.
Some 35 years later, John Kerry s candidacy for president of the United States has itself started to zoom skyward. It is one of the most stunning turnabouts in recent US political history. Senator Kerry has gone from near obscurity to a likely nominee (for the Democratic Party s candidate) in under four weeks. He just won major victories in the states of Michigan , Washington and Maine at the weekend. He defeated his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination and launched a sharp attack against President George W. Bush.
His oldest friends give most of the credit to Kerry himself. They call him a closer — a sometimes-maddening debater who will waste time on nonessentials, and finally recover.
Of course, Kerry had a part in his own comeback. The story of the front-runner has many aspects: new organization, money, perfected speeches, and stumbling foes.
In November, the Internet fund-raising of Howard Dean (another Democratic candidate) seemed like a revolution. Kerry knew he should, and would, do better.
"John was just so frustrated at watching Dean do what he was supposed to do — take on the mantle of the people, the grass-roots, and the kids,"says Thorne.
Kerry finally fired his campaign manager and replaced him with Mary Beth Cahill. She gave the campaign more order. That allowed Kerry to devote more time to showing his strong personality to voters.
This change was perhaps the pivotal moment in Kerry s recovery. It gave Kerry the confidence that he had a functional campaign.
Kerry is famous for asking questions and playing the devil s advocate. Proponents say that it is these qualities that finally conveyed Kerry s substance and deliberate way of thinking.
There s been a problem with Kerry s stiffness. He can seem to lack the human touch. He s the kind of person who might almost miss if he tried to slap someone on the back.
On Super Bowl (US football match) last Sunday, he watched the victory of his New England Patriots at a sports bar in North Dakota. Reporters said that he actually watched the game — making little attempt to connect with other people in the bar.
But, along with his stiffness comes an evident feeling for others. That quality applied to the men he commanded in Viet Nam. War veterans crowd the stage at his rallies and seem a support group for Kerry as much as something for TV viewers to watch.
Aides say that the veterans help Kerry relax. They make him seem more human in the way that candidates wives and children often do. |
