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WashPost June 1, 2003

JOHN KERRY: HUNTER, DREAMER, REALIST
. . .Complexity Infuses Senator's Ambition

By Laura Blumenfeld

. . .Dove, quail, duck, deer. Kerry described how to hunt and gut them, talking as he sliced through a steak at midnight after campaigning all day in Iowa for the Democratic presidential nomination. Carve out the heart, he said over dinner, pull out the entrails and cut up the meat. Bad table manners, perhaps, or good politics. After Sept. 11, 2001, some Democrats argue, they can't take the White House if they sound like doves. That is not a problem for the dove hunter. Kerry, 59, is the only combat veteran in the field. He stands 6-foot-4. He rides a Harley, plays ice hockey, snowboards, windsurfs, kitesurfs, and has such thick, aggressive hair he uses a brush with metal teeth.

“That's our slogan,” quipped his ad man, Jim Margolis. “John Kerry: He's no weenie.”

“He doesn't need a consultant to tell him how to dress like an alpha male,” said his friend Ivan Schlager. “He is a damn alpha male.”

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And who is he, really?

A close associate hints: There's a secret compartment in Kerry's briefcase. He carries the black attaché everywhere. Asked about it on several occasions, Kerry brushed it aside. Finally, trapped in an interview, he exhaled and clicked open his case.

“Who told you?” he demanded as he reached inside. “My friends don't know about this.”

The hat was a little mildewy. The green camouflage was fading, the seams fraying.

“My good luck hat,” Kerry said, happy to see it. “Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia.”

Kerry put on the hat, pulling the brim over his forehead. His blue button-down shirt and tie clashed with the camouflage. He pointed his finger and raised his thumb, creating an imaginary gun. He looked silly, yet suddenly his campaign message was clear: Citizen-soldier. Linking patriotism to public service. It wasn't complex after all; it was Kerry.

He smiled and aimed his finger: “Pow.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59559-2003May30.html