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Today Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) is the Democratic front-runner, up in the polls, cash pouring in over the Internet, his fundraisers getting checks instead of dial tones. But just 21/2 months ago, the Kerry campaign was on the verge of sinking in a sea of red ink. The faltering bid survived from one paltry fundraiser to the next, as debts rose faster than the cash came in, and creditors had to be fended off daily. Kerry's extraordinary rebound -- "We were losing to Al Sharpton in South Carolina," campaign spokesman Michael Meehan recalled, "People had written us off for...

A widely circulated report yesterday implicating Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry in Vietnam war crimes turns out to be wrong, New York Daily News "Lowdown" columnist Lloyd Grove insists today. But while the report in question did confuse John Kerry with former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, the Massachusetts Democrat did in fact once confess to committing war crimes - at least as he defined them - during his Vietnam War protest days. Blaming "the vast right-wing conspiracy" for spreading the misinformation, "Lowdown" notes that the Web site intellectualconservative.com had slammed Kerry for opposing the Vietnam war, even though he helped...

During Thursday night's debate, Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry had his best moment when he was challenged over the major anti-war protest he organized in 1971 after returning from Vietnam. "I could not be more proud of the fact that when I came back from that war, having learned what I learned," said Kerry, "that I led thousands of veterans to Washington, we camped on the [Capitol] Mall underneath the Congress, underneath Richard Nixon's visibility." Kerry told the debate audience that while Nixon tried to "kick us off" the Mall, "we stood our ground and said to him, 'Mr. President,...

I love stories about people who take their hits and come back. So this one is for my friend Bob Shrum. John Kerry has never sounded better. His stump speech has tightened up even since Iowa to the best presentation he's ever made in a campaign. His message clearly resonates as he talks about voters and their concerns, about dinner table issues, not about himself. Lots can change, as Iowa proves. But right now, what you're seeing are two seasoned veterans at the top of their game. In the bad old days in the Kerry campaign, when the obituaries were...

If we have learned anything since the 2000 presidential election it is that in a dangerous and uncertain world there is no substitute for a steady hand at the nation's helm, guided by a lifetime of experience. And that, at the end of the day, is what Sen. John Kerry has to offer the Democratic Party as its nominee for president - a 35-year record of service to his nation and to this state. It is something the people of Iowa began to sense as Kerry - finally - hit his stride as a candidate in the weeks before the...

John Kerry took reporters for a ride in Iowa, and it wasn’t just while he was taking stabs at President Bush for landing on an aircraft carrier as he himself flew around with the press in an helicopter over the corn fields. The reunion scene in which Kerry seeming completely stunned at the site of the Vietnam pal he rescued during his war days must have been enough to give the Grinch himself a case of the warm fuzzies. Kerry rescued Jim Rasmann after heavy enemy gunfire, before going on to become one of the war’s biggest protestors. The two...