Posted on 01/02/2005 7:48:43 AM PST by flixxx
KERRY SPEAKS: WHAT WENT WRONG Sun Jan 02 2005 10:35:31 ET
New York-In an exclusive interview about his presidential campaign and his life now, Sen. John Kerry tells Newsweek, "I'm not going to lick my wounds or hide under a rock or disappear. I'm going to learn. I've had disappointments and I've learned to cope. I've lost friends, a marriage: I've lost things in life."
Kerry has not given any formal interviews since his defeat. But on Nov. 11, he summoned a Newsweek reporter to his house on Boston's fashionable Louisberg Square. He wanted to complain about Newsweek's election issue, which he says was unduly harsh and gossipy about him, his staff and his wife. (The 45,000-word article, the product of a yearlong reporting project, is being published next week as a book, "Election 2004," by PublicAffairs.) Details from that interview appear in the January 10 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, January 3). Kerry talks with Newsweek about the campaign, why he lost and what's ahead for him. He did not wish to be directly quoted touting himself, however; he did not wish to appear defensive or boastful.
When asked why he lost the election, Kerry points to history and, in a somewhat inferential, roundabout way, to his own failure to connect to voters-a failure that kept him from erasing the Bush campaign's portrait of him as a flip-flopper, reports Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas. Kerry said that he was proud of his campaign, that he had nearly defeated a popular incumbent who had enjoyed a three-year head start on organizing and fund-raising. Sitting presidents are never defeated in wartime, he insisted (true, though two, LBJ and Harry Truman, chose not to run for another term during Vietnam and Korea).
While he quarreled with descriptions of his speaking style as "soporific," Kerry tacitly acknowledged that he failed to connect with enough voters on a personal level. Jose Ferreira, Kerry's nephew, told his uncle, "Some people are saying that your candidacy was driven by ABB [Anything But Bush]." Kerry replied: "Do you think so?" Ferreira said that once people got to know Kerry, they were intensely loyal. "Those are the people I let down," Kerry said, falling silent. In conversation with
Newsweek, Kerry seemed particularly interested in trying to find a way to speak to ordinary voters that didn't sound too grandiose or "political." Though Kerry did not directly criticize his friend Bob Shrum, it's clear he did not feel well served by his message makers and speechwriters.
The deeper problem may be Kerry's personality, which may be too distant or reserved to win mass affection. As Thomas left Kerry's house in November, Kerry called out and followed him down the street. Kerry wanted to show a letter from a schoolgirl that had been left on his stoop. The letter read, in part, "John Kerry, you're the greatest!" Kerry looked into the reporter's eye. "The pundits have never liked me," he said. "Is it the way I look? The way I sound?" He seemed vulnerable for a moment, then caught himself, smiled and walked home to his empty house.
In the heady days before the election, Kerry's top aides sat around picking a cabinet. Nowadays the foreign-policy team still meets on the assumption that it could be reconstituted for '08. But the reality is, "it's mostly sitting around some lawyer's office and asking each other if we've heard about jobs," says a member of the team. As for Kerry, says this adviser, "he thinks he's the frontrunner for '08 without recognizing that he needs to do some soul-searching. If he wants to come back, he'll have to come back as a different candidate, not the stiff who plays it safe and takes four sides of every issue."
Developing...
DUmmies are saying that Drudge is quoting a Newsweek article from Nov. 11th and that this is Old stuff! These people refuse to believe anything. They need major psychological counseling!
I'm not holding my breath waiting.
KERRY SPEAKS = WHAT WENT WRONGIt works equally well with respect to F'n or Mama T.
4 sides of the issues......now that is funny, especially when it is coming from their side......
i wonder if your loss had something to do with bringing the vietnam war back up,
and meanwhile your media buddies forgetting to tell the american people that you were dishonorably discharged for meeting with the viet cong in paris?
What went wrong? '74-2004
I assume he's referring to HIS, right? He just couldn't outrun it.
He's going to learn to lie better in claiming he has a moral compass.
I actually did not know that.
Kerry met with the Vietcong in Paris?!
He should have taken the sage advice of famed inkeeper and international relations specialist Basil Fawtly, of the tv comedy Fawlty Towers who opined.
"Whatever you do, don't mention the war."
Were they really that confident they were going to win?
I'm just surprised it was as close as it was.
Running on his record in Viet Nam and failing to sign the form 180. His whole 3 months in Viet Nam all he did was piss off every other officer he worked with. His crew are the only ones who backed him and I suspect they had ulterior motives.America doesnt respect heroes who write themselves up for medals. Superior officers are supposed to do that. When your Buddies who work with you are relieved after you are gone something isnt right.I hope the Swiftees are around next time he runs in Mass.
His being a traitor to his fellow soldiers and committing treason did not have anything to do with his losing. (sarasm)
Are sKerry and gin-soaked raisin woman, getting a divorce?
See there, Newsweek could have saved 44,991 words!
We aren't able to trust you John, because you're a lying turd who slandered his fellow veterans, a snotty Boston elite and a flaming liberal. Oh yeah, and your wife is a toad.
...despite those freakishly long legs.
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