BRIAN McGRORY

Will Kerry run, and if so, why?

By Brian McGrory, Globe Staff, January 26, 1999

Time is now the enemy for Senator John Kerry, who is watching in that typically indecisive way of his as his potential Democratic rivals for the presidency translate their ambitions into action in the millennial campaign.

He is fretting, struggling, grappling, agonizing. He is spreading calls to the farthest corners of the country while searching the deepest crevices of his own soul. He needs an answer he is unable to find, and he needs it soon.

There are signs good and bad. The Democratic field has dwindled to just a pair of contenders: Vice President Al Gore, the clear front-runner, and former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley, leaving a gaping opportunity to increase his national stature, if not something more. Bob Farmer, one of the party's most prodigious fund-raisers, will sign on with Kerry, saying yesterday, "If he decides to run for president, I'll be with him."

On the flip side, as Kerry ponders himself into a state of stalemate, Gore continues to shore up support for his titanic political organization, such that California Democratic Party President Art Torres said: "Save your money. It's almost insurmountable."

For Kerry, it is not easy being the junior senator from Massachusetts, not now, not any time soon, not as long as Senator Edward M. Kennedy casts his immense shadow across the political landscape. But his obstacles to greatness come from within -- from the less-than-subtle blemishes of his oft-discussed personality.

He is widely derided as aloof and arrogant, but allies and even proximate enemies regard this as a glib interpretation of a more complex person. Kerry, by most measures, is actually a thoughtful leader and a decent, even personable man, but plagued by a sense of insecurity that colors too much of his public life. While Kennedy, always confident, glides toward his goals, Kerry is attuned to every small bump along the way.

He is, at turns, engaging and enraging. He thinks nothing of complaining about the relatively insignificant slights that other politicians shrug off; or leaving a Senate aide dangling in a state of professional limbo. His behavior can be not so much maddening, but worse, annoying.

Yet, he banters easily over the most mundane aspects of life, proclaims himself on a diet in the dining hall of Locke-Ober before consuming a four-course lunch, and encourages advisers to prove him wrong on a policy stand.

It is his insecurity that, in part, has caused his flirtation with a presidential bid. Fresh off his resounding and nationally noticed defeat of William Weld in the 1996 Senate race, Kerry began scanning the political horizon for signs of his enhanced status. He floated his own name as a possible contender, began carving out stands on such issues as education reform that would help define a moderate candidacy, and began the arduous work of retiring his campaign debt.

In return, Kerry found long-elusive fulfillment in the form of recognition. Newsweek carried an outsize photograph of him in a story about Democratic candidates. Lions of the Washington press corps trekked to Boston for an audience. The network news shows called for his opinions on impeachment.

His longtime political strategists now paint a viable scenario for success. Gore, a stiff campaigner with a penchant for withering under pressure ("No controlling legal authority"), will stumble during the campaign, and given his front-runner status, any loss of footing will be seized upon and exaggerated by the national press. Then, an issues-based alternative will emerge, much as Gary Hart did against former vice president Walter Mondale in 1984. That candidate could prevail, or at least have a claim on the vice presidential nomination or front-runner status in 2004 or 2008.

So Kerry wrestles with his destiny, longing for something more, uncertain whether he can attain it. He tells people in private that he wants to run in the very worst way, to prove himself capable, to push his newfound issues of education and child care. But he doesn't know if the race is over before it even begins, if his candidacy will be regarded as the quixotic journey of another dreamy-eyed Democrat.

"I'm in the final stage," he said yesterday. "The process has been terrific, helpful, instructive."

Ultimately, his most difficult question is not whether to run, but why. If he can answer that, if it involves a purpose greater than himself, the result might be the politician that so many of his allies have been anticipating for so many years.