John F. Kerry

A

The Battle for the Democratic Nomination

Kerry began his race for the Democratic presidential nomination with some commentators calling him the presumed frontrunner. His opponents included former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who was little-known outside his home state; Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who had gotten some national exposure when he was considered for the vice presidency in 2000; and House minority leader Richard Gephardt, who had previously failed in a presidential bid. Other candidates included the 2000 vice presidential nominee, U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman; the Reverend Al Sharpton, Jr.; U.S. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio; U.S. Senator Bob Graham of Florida; and former Illinois senator Carol Moseley Braun.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq soon became a major issue in the Democratic primaries. Kerry, who had voted against authorization for the 1991 Persian Gulf War, voted for a 2002 resolution that in effect gave President George W. Bush the authority to go to war. Kerry said that his vote was an effort to give Bush a show of bipartisan support for getting United Nations (UN) inspectors into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction. Kerry said in an October 9, 2002, speech on the Senate floor that the “one reason” for his vote was “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint conference with our allies.”

In March 2003 Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq partly on grounds that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was not allowing UN inspectors to do their job (see U.S.-Iraq War). Dean seized on the Iraq issue, questioning why Kerry and some other candidates supported the Iraq war resolution when it was unclear whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. At a Democratic Party rally, Dean said he was there to “represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.”

Dean’s candidacy took off, in part because of his use of the Internet as a fundraising tool. As Dean soared in the polls in June 2003, Kerry’s campaign decided not to spend money on television ads that might have stopped Dean’s rise. The Kerry campaign wanted to save its resources, believing that Dean and Kerry would both be subject to federal spending limits by virtue of accepting matching federal campaign funds. But Dean raised money so successfully on the Internet that he was able to reject federal contributions to his campaign and thus not be subject to any spending limit. Kerry followed suit even though he was behind Dean in fundraising. Kerry also announced that he would loan personal funds to his campaign.

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Other candidates also picked up steam. Edwards raised slightly more money during the first quarter of 2003 than Kerry. Then, in September 2003, retired general Wesley Clark entered the race with the help of a team of former aides to President Clinton. Kerry, meanwhile, was having trouble with his message and his campaign. Complaints were aired that his slogans, such as “The Courage to Do What’s Right,” were vague. Some of Kerry’s Boston-based friends, long at odds with Kerry’s Washington-based campaign staff, urged Kerry to fire his campaign manager. Kerry agreed and hired an aide to Senator Kennedy, Mary Beth Cahill, as his new campaign manager in November 2003.

But things still looked glum. One poll released in late November 2003 showed Dean ahead of Kerry by 21 points in New Hampshire, which borders both Massachusetts and Vermont. On December 9, 2003, former vice president Al Gore endorsed Dean. Some Kerry aides wanted to put most of their resources into one last desperate drive in New Hampshire, but a decision was made to forge ahead in Iowa, where Dean also looked strong.

In early January 2004, just before the Iowa caucus, which was to be the first nominating election for the Democratic candidate, Kerry’s strategy and his personal energy finally began to pay off. At the same time, Dean suffered from questions about whether he would be able to defeat President Bush in a general election. Kerry’s popularity increased when he ran an ad touting his Vietnam service. The crowning moment came when James Rassmann, who had not seen Kerry since they served briefly together in Vietnam, showed up at a campaign event and told the crowd that Kerry had pulled him out of a canal under fire and saved his life. Kerry won the Iowa caucus, while Edwards, who had been endorsed by the Des Moines Register, came in second. Dean came in a disappointing third and may have buried his chance for revival when he delivered a speech so boisterous that it became known as the “Dean Scream.”

The following week, Kerry won the New Hampshire primary, and Dean’s candidacy was effectively over. Edwards, meanwhile, briefly challenged Kerry, winning his birth state of South Carolina and putting up stiffer-than-expected opposition elsewhere. The other candidates quickly faded. Then, on March 2, Kerry won nine of ten states, with Vermont going to Dean. The race was over, and Kerry was the presumptive Democratic nominee. In July Kerry selected Edwards as his vice-presidential running mate. The same month the Democratic Party formally selected Kerry as its presidential candidate at its convention in Boston, Massachusetts.

B

The Battle for the Presidency

Kerry’s popularity in the polls increased following the Democratic Convention but not by as wide a margin as some campaign staffers had hoped. Then in August a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth began airing a series of TV commercials that claimed Kerry did not deserve the medals he received during the Vietnam War. The group accused Kerry of lying about being under fire when he rescued one of his crewmates. The group was spearheaded by John E. O’Neill, fellow Navy veteran and a Texas lawyer who in 1971 angrily challenged Kerry’s claim that atrocities were committed in Vietnam. Bush’s campaign lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg resigned after admitting that he had given legal advice to the Swift Boat group. Bush denied having ties to the anti-Kerry group and said Kerry “served admirably” in Vietnam. First Lady Laura Bush said she did “not really” think the ads were unfair, noting the many attacks on her husband.

The Kerry campaign decided to focus on key battleground states where polls showed an extremely tight race. Among the key battleground states were Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Kerry made little effort in the so-called “red” states that were solidly in Bush’s camp. These included nearly all the states of the Old Confederate South and most of the Great Plains states. Neither did Kerry campaign significantly in the “blue” states where he had overwhelming support.

In late September the first of three presidential debates was held. Most political observers said Kerry clearly won the first debate with a forceful presentation that seemed to catch Bush off-guard and ill-prepared. Entering October, however, the polls continued to show that the presidential race was too close to call. The final two presidential debates in October failed to move the polls in either Bush’s or Kerry’s direction.

Continued attacks by insurgents against U.S. forces in Iraq, the release of a final report by CIA weapons inspector Charles Duelfer which concluded that Iraq had no programs to develop weapons of mass destruction after 1991, the discovery that hundreds of tons of high-powered explosives had fallen into the hands of Iraqi insurgents, and a videotape released by Osama bin Laden, all had no discernible impact on the polls as voters headed to the voting booths on November 2.

C

The Outcome of the Election

On Election Day, more than 118 million voters, or nearly 60 percent of eligible voters, went to the polls, the highest percentage turnout since 1968. After the votes were tallied, Kerry lost both the popular vote and the electoral college vote. In the popular vote, Bush won more than 60 million votes, or 51 percent, to Kerry’s more than 57 million votes, or 48 percent. Independent Ralph Nader won less than 1 percent, or about 400,000 votes. Nader was not a factor in deciding the outcome of the election in any state and did not win any electoral college votes. Bush won 286 electoral votes to Kerry’s 252, but Kerry actually received 251 electoral votes when the electoral college voted on December 13 after an elector in Minnesota mistakenly cast a ballot for John Edwards.

Kerry won 19 states and the District of Columbia, sweeping the Northeast and the West Coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California, while carrying the Midwestern states of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. When the election results showed that Bush won Ohio, this key battleground state gave Bush enough electoral college votes to claim victory. According to the National Election Pool (NEP, a survey taken for major news media outlets after people voted), Kerry narrowly won the women’s vote with 51 percent but lost the male vote with only 44 percent. Kerry won the African American vote (88 percent), the Jewish vote (74 percent), the trade union vote (61 percent), the Asian American vote (56 percent), the youth vote, ages 18 to 29 (54 percent), and the Latino vote (53 percent). Kerry won 55 percent of households earning less than $50,000 a year but only 43 percent of households earning more than $50,000 a year.

On the issues, 22 percent of voters polled for the NEP said the issue that mattered the most for them was “moral values,” followed by the economy (20 percent), terrorism (19 percent), and Iraq (15 percent). However, another poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, which phrased its questions in an open-ended way rather than asking people to choose from a predetermined list, found that Iraq was the top issue (27 percent), followed by the economy (14 percent), terrorism (9 percent), and moral values (9 percent).

Political analysts were divided over the reasons for Kerry’s defeat. Some believed that antigay marriage initiatives in 11 states increased the conservative turnout for Bush and explained why so many voters cited “moral values” as the most important issue. Other analysts said the decisive issue was terrorism, noting that 49 percent of voters said they trusted Bush to fight terrorism while only 31 percent trusted Kerry. For voters who thought terrorism was the most important issue, 86 percent voted for Bush. About 55 percent of voters also agreed with Bush’s argument that the war in Iraq was part of the war against terrorism.

Kerry’s campaign staff appeared to have been divided on campaign strategy. Some of his closest aides, particularly those who had worked in former President Bill Clinton’s campaign, argued for his campaign to focus more heavily on the economy, while other aides pushed for him to confront Bush over his alleged mishandling of the war in Iraq and failure to capture Osama bin Laden. Some of the postmortem analysis said Kerry failed to articulate a defining theme to his campaign and convey his character and personality. Many aides said after the campaign that Kerry made a mistake by not responding more quickly and forcefully to the attacks from the Swift Boat veterans group.

After the election, Kerry returned to his duties as a U.S. senator. In January 2007 he announced that he would not seek the Democratic presidential nomination for 2008. Instead, he said he would seek reelection to the U.S. Senate in 2008.