How I came to be a Kerrycrat

How I became a Kerrycrat.

I was originally, like almost all Democrats in 2003, for “anybody but Bush.” For me this only lasted through a few of the primary debates. During the primaries, I was only a little more engaged than the average voter. Knowing that my state’s primary would be far too late to have any impact on the nomination, and not planning to travel to another state to campaign for someone, I mostly just sat back and absorbed whatever information conveniently came my way and intended to make a personal decision on who I thought would best represent my political ideals – but I would support whoever the nominee eventually was.

Early in the primary season, I was briefly captivated by Dean. The Dean campaign did some innovative things with the Internet and I found the message mostly palatable, and sometimes compelling. However once I watched the debates, I found I consistently liked John Kerry’s responses better than enyone else’s. I think I also liked the way he comported himself – I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for a political candidate who can speak intellectually and is also impeccably groomed and mannered. The second part is probably only important for political candidates, but I’m a realist enough to know that it is important there. I decided to find out more about Kerry, but I’ll admit I did relatively little of that until the Swift Liars came along. Even then, I was pretty much satisfied once I was able to easily prove to myself how baseless their lies were. (Like the campaign later, I totally failed to see how tripe so baseless could get any traction at all.) So, I’ll admit I never went deeply into Kerry’s political history or even his positions – between what I saw and heard during the primary debates, and the strength of character I saw revealed in the 1971 SFRC hearings <1>, and probably a few other tidbits picked up here and there that I’ve now forgotten, I was satisfied that John Kerry was the Democratic candidate who best represented what I wanted in a President, at least of the choices presented. So, I was quite happy when he became the nominee.

Throughout the campaign season I did casual volunteering – if I got an email or a call asking for people to canvass or do voter registration, I would show up if I could work it into my schedule. To my later chagrin, I deliberately shied away from Kerry’s appearances (“I know I support him, I don’t need to see any more, and I need to get my school homework done so I can canvass this weekend.”) BIG mistake, because I would have been a much better campaigner if I’d seen earlier how different he was from the distorted picture shown by the media. Even the distorted picture was good enough for me to support him enthusiastically, but apparently, for many people it wasn’t good enough. I finally DID go to a rally – the 10/25/04 appearance in Philly. I took the day off from work to volunteer – by that time I’d absorbed enough information about Kerry’s positions that I’d started to think, I might REALLY like this guy, even beyond being the best of the choices presented in the 2004 primaries. At the rally, I was totally blown away. Kerry is a powerful, charismatic presence – in total contradiction to what the media got away with depicting. I had heard that from a few people during the summer – “you really HAVE to go see him, you will understand why” – and now I had seen it for myself – all of seven days before the election.

Of course I was devastated on Nov. 3rd. I had worked the polls on Nov 2, and saw the hope of early afternoon fade to dread by late evening. I saw scads of probable Kerry voters show up early and throughout the day in the red precinct I was poll-watching, and many young people voting for their first time. But I also saw the tide turn late, with what looked to me like a much stronger “red” turnout in the evening than “blue”, and the republican poll-watchers’ faces going from downcast to hopeful. This is important because it influences my feelings about certain arguments regarding “what went wrong on election day.”

After the election I started indulging in political blogging. I had discovered one of the “major” blogs – which I won’t link here for reasons I will perhaps explain below – and I found the sharing of insights and feelings about the election cathartic. I also discovered just how abysmally shallow <g … can shallowness be like an abyss?> was my own political knowledge, and my knowledge about the candidates specifically.

What I quickly found was that there are a lot of people who are quick to blame Kerry for one thing or another about his campaign, the concession, or his actions before and since. Most of the statements that I saw on the blogs like this, seem to me to have no basis in reality. Plus, for Democrats to publicly bitch that they “picked a poor candidate in 2004”, besides being untrue, is really stupid tactically, in my opinion.

It seems there is still a massive effort underway to discredit John Kerry in the blogosphere, and to a lesser extent in the traditional media (for example several writers for lefty rags take cheap shots at Kerry every chance they get). I wonder why this is? If he is so inconsequential or weak (as some of the claims go), why should anyone bother with him at all? I think the reason is that they still fear him. But that is not really germane to this missive.

I started making it a point to learn the arguments and refute the “bashers” every chance that I could, initially only because of the “tactically stupid to bash your candidate” argument. Although I liked Kerry fine as a politician, I’ll admit that even by the election, I didn't see him as particularly special, just someone I was proud to vote for, as politicians go.

As I learned more and more of the facts I started to see just how much I really do like Kerry. I like the positions he’s taken on issues and I like what I’ve come to believe is his approach to politics. Plus I think he possesses real character, integrity, generosity of spirit, and honor. Qualities that I don’t easily ascribe to any politician.

Perhaps the most important factor that has really enhanced my appreciation for Kerry, is his “approach to politics.” As Wellstone used to say (quoting Bismarck), “politics is the art of the possible.” As I’ve researched Kerry’s political history I've come to recognize that he lives out that philosophy in the way he votes and the way he works to reach compromise on issues. Some people seem to feel that compromise is bad. I think in politics it is often the only way to get things done. Still there are some things that should not be compromised on, and I see evidence of those in Kerry's history as well, from ANWR to civil unions.

A true “progressive” approach to politics, in my opinion, is to work for progress on every issue. “Progress” does not mean radical, overnight change. It means that you work with people to move them gradually towards a better society. I believe strongly in the progressive approach as opposed to the radical approach. The reason is that when you create radical change, some people’s lives will be affected radically – and many, if not most, will be changed for the worse; or even if the change on paper is for the better, the rapidity itself will cause an upheaval that hurts people. In contrast, when the change is gradual, it is easier for people to adapt. Also, I believe that long-run success is more likely, because gradual change will be less likely to cause backlash. (Like with compromise, there are times when this rule does not apply. But I believe those times are very rare.)

I have believed in progressivist politics for a long time. I did not just come to that belief. So, I am happy to find a politician who seems to share my liberal goals, but adheres to the progressive path towards achieving those goals.

Kerry's political approach is clearly demonstrated in the recent battle over the ANWR provision in the Defense spending bill. In his statement he identified ways that the need for additional U.S. oil production can be met – without spoiling wilderness. He made clear that there were other ways to meet the opposition's stated goals, that he would support. So even while not compromising on ANWR, he was looking to identify the real issue and propose workable alternatives. Isn't this what we want our politicians to do? But sometimes I feel that with most politicians it is all posturing and pandering. Not so with Kerry, based on my observations.

Now, about those liberal goals. It is easy to find out where John Kerry stands on the issues – just check out Project Vote Smart and On The Issues. Then there are the scorecards produced by advocacy groups such as LCV (but keep in mind you have to look pre-2003 for accurate rating on Kerry by LCV. They have published statements supporting him since then, however).
The most efficient pages on these sites, IMO, for seeing Kerry’s positions and record across the board are the Interest Group Ratings on PVS, and his VoteMatch Responses at OnTheIssues.

A sampling:
* Kerry was listed as an “environmental champion” by LCV in the 1990’s, and has had a very high rating from LCV since, except of course while he was on the campaign trail (LCV counts missed votes as "wrong" votes, and the republican mis-leadership did a good job of scheduling important votes when Kerry wouldn't be there. Imagine that.). Environment is clearly one of Kerry's key issues. People complain he didn’t say enough about it in the campaign, but that is not true: the media never reported what he said, just as there was no question posed during the debates about the environment.

* Human rights. He has a great rating on women’s rights including abortion, gay rights (except some extremists are mad because he supports civil unions, not gay marriage); and is opposed to the death penalty.

And so forth. But the kicker – the absolute kicker for me after overall political philosophy – is that John Kerry GETS IT about corporations, small business, and competitive capitalism. I found that he is the ranking member on the Small Business and Entrpreneurship committee. I have been following his work and could not be more impressed. Now, this is ultimate wonk for some people – not nearly as sexy as the high-profile social issues - but it is foundational to how our society operates, and Kerry GETS IT. If you are totally anti-capitalist and have no use for small business whatsoever, then you can’t appreciate this. Personally, I have no use for the alternative, which is communism. At the current stage of human social evolution, there is no way in hell that communism could take hold as a voluntary, utopian, love your neighbor economic system. The only way communism can survive is through enforcement by a human government, which means some people will be treated grossly unfairly, because human government will always be marred by human weaknesses causing corruption, cronyism, personal vendettas, etc.

So, with communism eliminated as an option, our choices are unregulated capitalism tending toward large corporations and monopoly or oligopoly; or competitive, regulated capitalism embodied in optimally-sized smaller businesses. I’ll take the latter.

Since I believe excessive group power (corporations and others) is at the root of a huge amount of the evil in our society, I think that addressing it is of paramount importance. One important front in this battle is to increase the ability of small businesses to compete against corporations. Also, people who own their own businesses are personally empowered far more than anyone who works for a corporation could be.

So it is refreshing to see a politician who GETS the importance of small business. I cannot stress enough how much my discovery of Kerry’s role in supporting small businesses, especially women and minority owned businesses, won me over to become a strong supporter. Everything I’ve seen from him on small biz is dead nuts on target with what I believe is right. For example, a lot of his efforts are targeted to entrpreneurship and microbusinesses – NOT the so-called "small business" of the Bush administration and others (including many Democrats, I'm sure), where a business is "small" if it has less than 500 employees. Kerry created the MicroLoan program and has championed LowDoc loans, as means to enable more people to create their own businesses.

You can find out more about Kerry's Small Biz work at:
http://sbc.senate.gov/democrat/


Finally – the final thing I’ll write about, not the only thing left to say, by a long shot – is the understanding I’ve come to about Kerry’s Senate career. The Frontline documentary, The Choice 2004, does a good job of explaining how Daniel Ortega backstabbed Kerry and Harkin (or at best Ortega made a very, very stupid political move), which severely undercut Kerry’s ability to take the lead on anything in the Senate for a very long time. As it was he had to fight to get on committees that resulted in some of his most meaningful (and underappreciated) achievements: the BCCI investigation, POW/MIA closure, and the Iran/Contra/CIA drug-running investigation. In each of these investigations, Kerry went up against powerful, entrenched forces on both sides of the aisle, who desperately needed or at least wanted him to fail. In 2 out of 3 he and his team prevailed: BCCI was brought down (although I’m hearing that remnants remain and have regrouped, because the Congress failed to follow through on the committee’s recommendations); the POW/MIA issue was closed to most people’s satisfaction and relations with Vietnam were normalized. Sadly the CIA drug-running investigation did not fare as well. I have read that Kerry earned a rep for trying to get media attention on this issue, because the media refused to cover it and he would literally jump at a camera to try to get some coverage. Anyway, the issue just never gained enough traction in public interest or credibility, although a few reputable papers did cover it and conclude that it was real.

So when people point to Kerry’s relatively low number of landmark bills passed (although these same people will discount MicroLoan and his role in S-CHIP), they ignore that he spent a great deal of time working on investigations rather than putting his name of legislation. And this in turn came about probably largely because he stuck his neck out for Ortega and got his head handed to him, which limited for some time his ability to collaborate with other Senators in any high-profile way (apparently he was radioactive). So I think he handled the bad hand he was dealt pretty well, and who knows if BCCI would have actually been brought down without his involvement. Kerry supporters who know that story well insist that it wouldn’t have, because Kerry fought for access to information and to make the most of the committee’s investigative powers in ways that no one else on the committee would have. (I can scare up some links for this, but don’t have any handy right now.)

You can view the Frontline documentary online at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2004/view/

The Ortega piece is in Chapter 4.
(Advisory: this documentary covers both Kerry and The Evil One. Watch with caution.)

So, that covers the most important points, although I can already think of several things I missed. But these are the main reasons I’ve become a strong supporter of John Kerry. I’ll support the Democratic nominee in 2008, whoever it is, but I really hope it’s Kerry. It would take a lot to convince me at this point that there is anyone else who would better represent me than Kerry. It took me a while to come to this conclusion though, so I don’t expect anyone else’s opinion to change overnight either. I think if you observe Kerry’s actions over time with an open mind and a modicum of political analysis, you just might see what I see. If not, that’s okay, we are all entitled to our (informed) opinions.

The rest, well, you know I'm captivated by his words, the way he thinks. It's a package unmatched by anyone else on the scene. I'm not the type to worship anyone, but I will support Kerry to the end. That is all.