Life on the Kerry Campaign Trail

It must have been fun for him... From Yahoo/Finance/Newsweek: Here is the headline and the lede, scroll down a bit for the meat of the story: bq. NEWSWEEK ELECTION ISSUE: 'How He Did It' Kerry Laments: 'I Can't Believe I'm Losing to This Idiot' Carville Leads Clintonistas' Coups, Implores Cahill to Step Aside or He'll 'Tell The Truth' About Campaign Woes On NBC's 'Meet The Press' Daughter Alexandra Pleads to Kerry After Locking in Nomination: 'Will You Please Appreciate This Moment for 10 Seconds?' When President Bush's poll numbers surged in April after a press conference where his performance was derided by the press and the chattering classes, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry was baffled, writes Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas in an exclusive report in Newsweek's special election issue. "He said with a sigh to one top staffer, 'I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot.'" Here is one: bq. Kerry's drive to self-perfection was boundless-sometimes to a fault. In early spring he sought counsel from Washington speech coach Michael Sheehan. With aides he would sometimes say, "Tell me everything you think I'm doing wrong." When John Sasso arrived on the campaign in September he found a candidate who had turned himself into a pincushion. "Kerry had been inviting personal criticism from pretty much anyone who had an opinion...Kerry was drowning in negative energy from all around," Thomas writes. Sasso wanted it to stop. There was to be no more direct criticism of the candidate, period. And Teresa and the daughters were not exempt, Newsweek reports. It was not self-perfection, it was polling and finding the "comfy words" for the specific target audience so that he could triangulate and mouth the words they wanted to hear. One more (although this article has a couple other good ones): bq. Managing Teresa. Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, presented a host of behind-the-scenes drama for Kerry. Early on, the campaign staff regarded Teresa as something of a hypochondriac, and she canceled three trips in October at the last minute, usually for what was described to aides as a "nonspecific malady." Kerry's first campaign manager, James Jordan, had little patience for her strong opinions, sending emails trashing the candidate's wife...which inevitably reached his rivals within the campaign, including Bob Shrum (an old Teresa friend) and helped seal Jordan's eventual dismissal. bq. Later came Kerry campaign's post-convention "Sea to Shining Sea" tour: a 3,500-mile bus and train trek that was not a happy trip for Teresa. With each passing day she made less effort to hide her displeasure. Audiences were mystified when Teresa turned her back to them at daylight rallies and wore dark sunglasses and a hat at night (backstage, the candidate's wife complained of migraines and sore eyes). As they reached the climax of the tour, an hourlong "family vacation" hike in the Grand Canyon, the planned happy-family- vacation was disintegrating in plain view. Daughter Vanessa didn't enjoy being a prop, Teresa was complaining of migraines and telling her husband she couldn't walk anymore. The candidate tried to bravely soldier on, pulling his sullen wife and children to show them the magnificent condors flying overhead. OUCH! I think I know what her problem is and I would not wish it on anyone... John Forbes Kerry, you have my sympathies but not my vote -- better luck with your next heiress...