Boston Globe: Weighing defeat, Kerry sees lessons to guide future
WASHINGTON -- Pained but not bowed, Senator John F. Kerry promised in an interview with the Globe last week to apply the lessons of a presidential campaign that he portrayed as ''so much bigger and more complex than people think" to bolster a Democratic Party that he indicated he might seek to lead again.
''I'm not going to sit around, you know. I'm going to learn a lot of good lessons," he said.
Sitting in a wing chair in his Senate office, opposite a historical print of Nantucket Harbor, Kerry offered a wide-ranging assessment of an election he lost by about 3 million popular votes and 35 electoral votes. He said he was determined to play a leading role in his party's efforts to integrate values and religion into its message, especially as directed at his fellow Catholics.
He also said he'd be eager to work at improving the party's grass-roots organizations alongside his former rival Howard Dean, now in line to head the Democratic National Committee, a man he said won his respect by campaigning tirelessly for the Kerry-Edwards ticket.
During the two-hour interview on Thursday, Kerry cited some impediments to his election as president, including the gay marriage referendums in 11 states (''I can certainly tell you it had an impact"), the financial disadvantage of the early convention (''We had a 13-week general election and they had an eight-week"), and surveys showing half of Bush voters believed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks (''Now, did I scratch my head over that? You better believe it.")
Kerry also said he hopes to sit down with President Bush to talk about foreign affairs before Bush's trip to Europe at the end of this month, in what would be the first meeting between the two since their final presidential debate.
Despite the contentious nature of the campaign, Kerry expressed no resentment toward the president, but revealed a simmering bitterness toward some of the president's staunch backers. Kerry demanded that the swift boat veterans who had criticized his military record agree to open up their own files because he knows ''one guy was busted" and another ''has a letter of reprimand."
The fight over the ads by veterans accusing Kerry of exaggerating his Vietnam heroism -- a period that marked a downturn in Kerry's polling numbers -- lingers as a key battle of the campaign.
Last spring, after securing the nomination, Kerry promised Democrats that he wouldn't fall victim to the character attacks that felled so many of the party's former nominees. Three months after Election Day, Kerry still appears angry with himself for allowing the swift boat ads, along with the Republican portrayal of him as a ''flip-flopper," to define his candidacy for some voters.
Read the complete interview
