JOAN VENNOCHI

Kerry is looking beyond the 2000 campaign

By Joan Vennochi, Globe Staff, July 2, 1999

'I'm feeling a little decadent this morning," says US Senator John F. Kerry. To prove it, he orders a Belgian waffle -- crisp.

Outside, another steam bath of a Boston day is heating up. Inside, at a Four Seasons breakfast, everything is properly chilled -- the air temperature, the service, the grapefruit juice. Everything, surprisingly, except Kerry.

The Commonwealth's junior senator is warmer face to face than his TV persona. He's relaxed, whether exchanging pleasantries with Steven Grossman, former national chairman of the Democratic National Committee, or talking about the Republicans and their lack of a national agenda.

As Kerry and all Democrats know, the GOP does have one firm agenda item: to recapture the White House. At the moment, Republican hopes and prayers are vested in George W. Bush, the Texas governor and son of a former president, whose life intersected briefly with Kerry's at Yale. Did they know each other as undergraduates? "We crossed paths. Are there pictures of us dancing naked on a bar together? No. I don't have that," Kerry laughs.

Since politics is a game of possibilities, it is possible these two might have crossed paths again on the campaign trail. But then Kerry announced last February that he was taking himself out of the running in the race for president in 2000.

Kerry is not about to publicly bemoan his decision. But you know he knows the obvious. The nation's rallying around President Clinton during last winter's impeachment trial had little to do with respect for the man and everything to do with respect for the office. Fallout from the Monica Lewinsky scandal greatly diminishes Clinton during the final months of his final term. It also hurts Vice President Al Gore, who looks much less formidable today than he did when Kerry announced he would not join the field of Democratic candidates.

"Maybe I miscalculated how expensive it would be. Maybe it would have cost $15 million instead of $25 million," muses Kerry. But he doesn't sound too regretful about his decision, and why should he? If you're Kerry, you're thinking the future could still be very interesting.

Maybe Gore will win the nomination and the presidency. But Gore could also lose to Bush. Then the nation and the GOP will learn the truth about "compassionate conservatism." With politics the game of possibilities it always is, it is possible neither the nation nor the GOP will like the reality very much. If they don't, it is quite possible the younger Bush could follow in his father's footsteps -- right out of the White House after one term. If that happens, why couldn't Kerry be the Democrat chosen to march back in?

"I don't know what the future brings," Kerry says from Washington when asked about a 2004 scenario during a subsequent telephone conversation. "I'm open to it."

He shifts easily into national campaign-speak: "We're in the middle of a monumental transition, and most of our politics in Washington is not grappling with what that means to the average American. We're skirting around the problems." He defines one key challenge as the daily conflict between work and family, between parenting and trying to earn enough money to send our children to college.

Washington, he says, is "irrelevant to that in a sad way . . . both parties to a degree." The irrelevancy, says Kerry, is rooted in the cycle of rhetoric over action, of slogans over substantive policy.

So what about the centerpiece slogan of the burning-hot Bush campaign -- "compassionate conservatism"? Says Kerry: "I'm looking for the compassion on the Republican side right now. It will interesting to see how that gets implemented. . . . I'm tired of slogans. I want to see the real program, the policy. I think there's an incredible tension within their party that makes it difficult to go beyond the slogan."

As a candidate Kerry would have to come up with specifics, too. Now he can just vent and have fun.

After breakfast in Boston, Kerry once again encounters Grossman, the former national DNC head. They crack Yale and Princeton jokes and the name of George W. Bush, the Ivy Leaguer in cowboy boots, comes up once more. Kerry lifts his pant legs to display his footwear. His shoes are shiny, sleek, and slightly tapered. They are conventional, yes, but still capable, he could be saying, of kicking a little butt.

Maybe next time, Senator?