Hey, I actually met Sen. Kerry in person!

Self | Feb. 1, 2004 | Mr. Mike Fumetti

[FUMETTI]

I personally met Sen. John Kerry in Boston in 1992 at a Boston Northeastern University political science gathering and found him cold, aloof, unfriendly and condescending. In fact, the only person he was warm to was the token "gay" guy at the gathering. I guess I was not diverse enough to be talk to him in a social situation. Furthermore, my Syrian friend Khalid saw him groping women and acting drunk at the Harvard Club in Boston (yeah I know he went to Yale, but he IS a senator and can do that). And at an election year party in 1992 at the Weston Hotel which I attended (I was once a Democrat...gasp!) he would not shake hands with anyone who was not either in a 500 buck Dior tie or a dyke crewcut. Are these revelations of any concern to anyone sorry enough to have met the arrogant jerk of a man?

[Scarchin]

I met him at the closing ceremonies for the old Boston Garden. I was talking to him as he signed my program and he kept looking around and over my shoulder - I was invisible to him. I had liked him because of Imus up to that point...then I met the REAL Kerry.

[mafree]

I met Kerry outside of a subway stop in Boston when he first ran for the Senate. I was on my way to work. He asked how I was, introduced himself and extended his hand, which I shook and wished him well. Though he is much taller than I, he looked me right in the eyes. Just your average politico pressing the flesh. You couldn't pay me to vote for him and I don't want to see him get in, so I'll probably be voting for Bush.

[Jackson Brown]

Do you think the GOP and Rove will have the balls to bring this up in ads, or are we going to be the only ones talking about it?

Yes, I think they will...

They will have to if Terry McAuliff (sp?) follows through on his threat that the DNC will make Bush Vs. "war hero" Kerry a key issue.

[FUMETTI]

He was running for office of course, that is when a snot like Kerry eats pastrami sandwiches with construction workers, dances in a circle at a Greek festival, and shakes hands all day long. He seems like the type interested in acquiring power. By the way, I also met Hillary Clinton in 1992 when she visited a Rochester NY community college and shook her hand! Up close I thought she was kinda cute! Well, she was passable until she dyked herself up when she first ran for the senate.

[Salvation]

What You Don't Know about John Kerry

[FUMETTI]

That sure sounds like him...he is only polite enough to not make the papers for any rude behavior. He is so "politician", so much more than the average politico. There is no warmth in the man. GW Bush, by contrast, even with his aristocratic family tree, is the type of man who would treat a person like the only man in the room. He is a man who does not put on airs, unlike a prick like Kerry.

[DFW_Repub]

The criminals are no better armed than they were 10 years ago or more. Until the criminals begin to show up with JAVELIN missles and 40mm automatic grenade launchers there is no need for a large caliber gun. This is just a waste of our tax money.

[ladyjane]

Will he change his name to John Kerry-Heinz if he is elected?.

Probably not. Teresa won't allow it. When Teresa uses the term "my husband" she is referring to her former husband Heinz. She calls John, John. She calls herself Teresa Heinz, not Teresa Kerry.

[FUMETTI]

Yes, as much as I disagree with Bush on many issues, he cannot pass things like illegal alien amnesty without congressional approval anyway. He is overall a strong man who really rose to the occasion on 9-11, in a way a president should, which made me prouder than ever to be an American. Our leader took us through those dark days with strength and courage. If Kerry gets in, this country will see taxes like they have never seen before, and special statuses granted to the most outlier of groups. He will practically open our boarders the way he says the amnesty bill "did not go far enough." I shudder at a Kerry presidency. He should never be allowed near the Oval Office.

[FUMETTI]

.... She calls herself Teresa Heinz, not Teresa Kerry.

Like Dr. Judy Steinburg, who is thinks she is too good to be known as Judy Dean?

[Verginius Rufus]

Coolidge was a genuine Vermonter. There have only been two Presidents who were born in Vermont, and both got into the White House because the President died in office--the other was Chester A. Arthur. There was one other VP who was born in Vermont--Levi Morton, VP under Benjamin Harrison. All three were elected from bigger states (NY or Massachusetts).

Howard Dean is a faux Vermonter, a flatlander from New York who moved to Vermont. There was a recent column, by Jonah Goldberg if I'm not mistaken, about the influx of undesirables who have taken over Vermont.

[x]

At least when Republican New Englander candidates got elected (I think Coolidge was the last real New Englander to the bone who has been president), they had a little fun, loved people and had a common touch.

William Weld seemed to have fun. He could take a joke and more than a few drinks, though looking back, he seems to have had more in common with Kerry than it appeared at the time. Weld seems to have been kind of a "half-breed," half-Brahmin, half-regular human being, who's gotten more Brahmin as he realized that he didn't have much of a political future. Buddy Cianci has the "common touch," and John Rowland looks pretty common, too, but that's not always a good thing.

Why have things changed? Maybe because money talks more in politics than it once did. You don't get points licking envelopes for the local party committee anymore. You have to appeal to the big contributors, who are a pretty homogeneous lot in their attitudes. You can't scare off the bankers and also have to look good on television.

Rhode Island may be a little more populist than Massachusetts or Vermont, but New England doesn't seem to do folksy any more. Maybe the whole country has changed as well. You don't find so many colorful characters in politics today. If any do rise, it's because the polished guys move up to Washington and turn over the reins to the local crew. Coolidge himself had been a lieutenant governor chosen to appeal to Western Massachusetts before he moved up to the governorship.

Kerry is the extreme case that illustrates the general rule: ordinary people don't get as far in politics as those with connections, money, and surface polish.

[1066AD]

So how tall is he ? I've seen 5ft8 all the way to 6ft5 reported.

[1066AD]

Americans for Democratic Action rate Kerry as more liberal than Teddy The Swimmer.

[FUMETTI]

He is quite tall.

[FUMETTI]

You make some very valid points, and you do help jog some of my more fainter memories when I lived in the city. I do remember Gov. Bill Weld when I went to college in Massachusetts...he actually went to rock concerts like the Grateful Dead! He was a more down-to-earth Brahmin, true. I have heard good things about Buddy Cianci from some Boston friends I still keep in contact with...but my friends swear *everybody's* stink is on the bloated "Big Dig" in Beantown, in both parties. But Tip ONeil and Teddy were the big pushers for that overbudgeted mess.

[FUMETTI]

I know, Dean is a born and bred Lon-Guylander (I am as well, but not the Hampton snobs but a Suffolk County Patchogue joe) and he has as much in common with Vermont as Billy Graham has with the Chicken Ranch in Reno.

True facts about Chester Arthur: 1. he may not have been born in Vermont, but actually Canada, as his preacher dad and his mother was supposedly in Quebec when he was born...but that may be crap by political opponents, the same people who said Grover Cleveland fathered a child out of wedlock. 2: I lived near York in Livingston County, NY where Arthur and his family lived for 8 years or so (his father preached at a church that is still there!). That town makes a lot of hay over that fact!

[MissAmericanPie]

I got to insult Congressman Jim Wright in the middle of the Century II restaurant in Ft. Worth once. Yesterday I saw Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchins, she rode in the grand entrance of the Stock Show Rodeo. She is teeny tiny.

[mafree]

No doubt Ketchup Boy's gonna start being real nice to everybody now.