WASHINGTON - This is a man who does not like to seem over-eager. Particularly at the White House. Particularly now.
When US Senator John F. Kerry is running late for something, which is often, he usually leaves the nervous jiggling of feet and shortness of breath to others. Kerry, 56, prides himself on a preternatural calm.
But on a recent warm Wednesday, the Democratic senator was late for something big. He was due to appear at the White House, with President Clinton, Arizona Senator John S. McCain, and Vietnamese officials, for the signing of an agreement normalizing trade relations with Vietnam. It was something he had helped to make happen, but getting to the ceremony on time seemed unlikely.
After a hair-raising ride through the capital in his 1985 Dodge convertible, Kerry pried his lanky frame from the car, adjusted his suit, and walked almost languidly to the White House entrance. His traveling companions were more harried.
Kerry does not like people to run when they are with him. Hearing the fast clack-clack of an aide's heels behind him just as he was approaching the door, Kerry stopped, reeled around, and issued a forceful directive:
''Everybody needs to relax.''
This is a man who may well be on Al Gore's short list for vice president. This is a man who does not want, especially now, to seem over-eager.
And yet, for much of his long political career, over-eager is exactly what Kerry has seemed. At 26, he ran for office the first time, setting his sights directly on the US Congress. When he ran for the Senate in 1984, he earned the nickname ''Liveshot'' for his pursuit of free media. As a senator, he has been criticized for concentrating on glamorous foreign policy issues at the expense of mundane constituent concerns.
''Mythology,'' he calls it, and ''early baggage from my years when I was brash.'' Ancient history in any case, he says.
Friends and colleagues heartily concur, arguing that Kerry has come into his own in recent years. They say he seems more at peace with himself and his place in the world, and less concerned with appearances than he once was.
But right now, Kerry is extremely concerned with appearances, and with good cause.
The speculation on his chances of becoming Vice President Al Gore's running mate, and premature congratulations, follow him wherever he goes. Never has the senator been so closely watched, and for so long, by so many people. His short-list status is mentioned in scores of publications across the country daily, each minuscule development freighted with moment: a rumored Gore request for the senator's tax records, a fund-raiser with the vice president at Kerry's Georgetown manse, a flurry of votes and proposals by the senator that seem to dovetail with Gore's priorities.
Kerry, used to having his every move raked over for evidence of opportunism, is keeping mum, more or less. As a central figure in this particular political parlor game, he avoids public discussion of his vice-presidential prospects because he knows he can't talk about it without seeming too eager, or arrogant, or ambitious - sure routes to also-ran land.
But what Kerry calls the ''mythology'' is bobbing up like a cork in some publications. This week, The New Republic called Kerry ''the most shamelessly self-promoting veep in the Democratic Party.''
Kerry's aides, and at least one Gore staff member, scoff at that: not Kerry's style, they say. Besides, they add, the senator is more astute than that.
But Kerry will tell you there has always been a gulf between who he is and how he's seen.
Insists there's `more to life'
He may be on the brink of achieving his penultimate political goal, but Kerry says that he feels as if he could leave it all, that he wants to be remembered for other things. He is not merely playing down his vice-presidential ambitions. He is playing down ambition, period. He says his political career, far from consuming him, is only a small part of him.
''Maybe it's turning 50, maybe the journey traveled, but seeing life go by you learn, you hopefully learn, to feel more comfortable,'' he said recently, during a pause between Senate votes. ''I feel as if I know how to balance the personal and the professional. You feel like you know where things fit.''
And his public career, from his antiwar activism to his too-early run at the congressional seat, to his stint as lieutenant governor and service in the Senate, is but a part of who he is, he says.
He is proud of his hard-fought race for the Senate in 1984, and proud of his victory over Governor William F. Weld for that same seat in 1996. He ticks off achievements like his role as chairman of the Commission on POW-MIA affairs, his investigation of money laundering at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the Marine Mammal Protection act, the Sustainable Fisheries Act, and legislation to help put an extra 100,000 police officers on the streets.
But, he says wistfully, he wants other things.
''I have greater certitude now about the things I'm fighting for, and of how to get things done,'' Kerry said. ''But I don't envision trying to die here. I'll run for reelection, but beyond that, I have no sense. I love what I'm doing, but I want to be defined by more than this. And there's definitely more to life.''
Asked what else he might want to do, Kerry throws back an answer from way out in the bleachers: something completely different, he says. Maybe some kind of artist.
But there are other signs that the something else Kerry is aiming at has nothing to do with art. His recent flirtation with a run for the Democratic presidential nomination, for example. And his rumored interest in becoming governor of Massachusetts. And what Massachusetts officials and even some staff say is his uneven enthusiasm after 16 years as a senator. Some local officials say his heart isn't in domestic affairs.
Kerry has heard all of that, says the charges of careerism and constituent neglect have weakened since his victory over Weld in 1996, and chalks much of it up to the peculiarities of his home state.
''Massachusetts is demanding and tough,'' he said. ''It has a very low bullshit threshold and a high performance threshold. Other places in the country wouldn't dream of the kinds of columns and writings that we have in our state. It's more easy to take somebody for granted and to have a more parochial view of them than people who see you in a different role more often, maybe.''
The prophet-without-honor-in-his-home-state argument might raise some eyebrows among those who believe Kerry still has an imperfect command of the local political landscape. But the voters seem to know their man. To wit: Kerry's victory over the hugely popular Weld, in a race closely watched across the country.
If there is a gap between the image and the man, it may be because the man makes it hard to get past the image.
''His interpersonal skills are not as good as his public skills,'' said Thomas Vallely, Kerry's longtime friend and a fellow veteran. ''He's a much better debater than he is at, `Let's try to have a small conversation with someone you don't know very well.' He's never going to be really good at that. It may take you a little time to get through. He's not perfect. I'm not afraid to tell him, `John, you know, don't be so self-centered.' But he's not above self-improvement.''
He set himself apart during the antiwar protests in 1970, too. Others wore their hair long and camped out at the Capitol. Kerry wore a perfect crease in his fatigues. And when others tossed away their medals in protest, Kerry tossed only his ribbons.
''Those were wild times and he was not wild, he was careful,'' said Christopher Gregory, a fellow veteran who worked on several of Kerry's subsequent political campaigns, and is now a Massachusetts lobbyist. ''I guess actually, it took a while to warm to him. He didn't seem to want that, really. He was concerned with the work, not with people's feelings about each other. He was a good leader.''
That may be partly because of his upbringing, Gregory said. Kerry, the son of a foreign service officer, was raised Catholic and still attends services at the Paulist Center on Beacon Hill. His was a cultured and proper New England family. Kerry spent part of his childhood in Europe, and because of that, and his Catholicism, he sometimes felt isolated from his schoolmates. He says he fit in better at Yale, where he was an inconsistent and easily bored student: ''I started out decently, but I became very impatient,'' he recalled. ''In senior year, I practically majored in flying. I now regret it, to be honest.''
Kerry threw himself into extracurricular activities: He was on the debating team, headed the political union, and played all manner of sports - soccer, hockey, lacrosse, and others. David Thorne - who was a fellow Skull and Bonesman, also went to Vietnam, and eventually became Kerry's brother-in-law - had a similar upbringing, and said getting close to him was easy.
The two still do the kinds of things together now that they did in college: windsurfing, snow skiing, sailing, rollerblading, golf. The senator, his friends say, likes things that go fast - cars, boats, motorcycles.
Kerry has recently taken up the guitar. Aides say he sometimes pulls it from its case in his red-walled Senate office and picks out tunes from musicals like ''Cats.'' Mercifully, they say, the senator does not sing. Then there are the poems, which, Thorne says, ''he carries around and doesn't show to anybody. It's important to him and dear to him, and that's a side of him no one sees. And I'm not sure he wants them to.''
Balancing work and family
His friends say Kerry's marriage to Teresa Heinz has helped him put his political career in perspective. Kerry says ''mythology,'' too, surrounded him during the period between his 1988 divorce from his first wife, Julia Thorne, and his 1995 marriage to Heinz, giving him a playboy image that was fueled by his fluid living arrangements for some of that time.
''For a period of time there was a mythology about me down in Washington, about what I was doing as a single senator,'' Kerry said. ''Whereas most single senators will tell you there's a lot of loneliness that goes with that. And it's a special thing to be able to fill that up with love and the fullness of a relationship such as we've been able to have, much to some people's surprise.''
Kerry says Heinz has made him much better at carving out time for a personal life, at the couple's Beacon Hill home and at her houses in Georgetown, Ketchum, Idaho, and Nantucket. When he is not with Heinz, he says, he tries to see one or both of his daughters, Alexandra, 26, an actress, and Vanessa, 23, who is entering medical school.
''John's family was pretty reserved in the New England tradition, and there were not a lot of public displays of affection and emotion,'' Thorne said. ''John has learned to be more affectionate, demonstrably affectionate. He's learned a lot from his kids. He's grown a lot and changed a lot from [being] the product of his family to the [father] of his own. His daughters have demanded a more modern relationship of him.''
Now this son of a reserved New England family faces the prospect of selling himself to more people than ever before, and knows it would be unwise to make a bad first impression. Kerry and his aides seem to have agreed that trying to make any impression at all at this stage of the game is a bad idea.
It's not always easy, though.
At Dulles International Airport recently, political consultant Jimmy Rowan yelled ''I saw the article yesterday!'' from across a crowded departure lounge. There had been a story in USA Today heralding Kerry's prospects.
Kerry gave a little wince, waved to Rowan, and kept talking on his cell phone.
''They're a lot more interested in him than he's letting on,'' Rowan said, drawing near to Kerry. ''They're serious about you!''
Kerry, uncomfortable, shifted his tall, wiry frame in his seat. The fine navy suit, the familiar mass of graying hair and the unmistakable long jawline make him conspicuous enough to begin with. Now everybody was looking at him.
''The [article] just mentioned me,'' Kerry tells Rowan quietly, trying to turn proceedings down a couple of notches. ''There wasn't much substance to it.''
And so it goes, day after day. He's trying, but at times it seems as if staying above the fray is a battle for Kerry. Tuesday, when he held a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser attended by Gore at his Georgetown home, was a case in point.
''A number of you have come up to me tonight and asked me if I have any interest at all in serving as vice president with Al Gore,'' Kerry told 50 donors. ''Actually, none of you have asked me that, and I'm a bit ticked off!''
Kerry then launched into a speech attacking Bush and his vice-presidential pick, Dick Cheney. It was just the kind of speech a vice presidential nominee would give - after his selection.
''Thank you, John, that was a great speech, didn't y'all think so?'' Gore said when he finally spoke. ''And I did take note of that quip about the V.P. position.''
