John Kerry, Patriot's Candidate

Ensuing months could, using a John Kerry-esque superlative, provide some of the most compelling days and weeks the city of Boston has seen since John F. Kennedy last putted golf balls on the White House's South Lawn. Since then, an aversion to the Northeast brewed in the hearts and minds of average Americans, replaced by the cowboy South-by-Southwest mentalities of Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan.

New Englanders failed where they once dominated, as their monopoly on the White House whittled into a situation reminiscent of the Red Sox status as second-class citizens to the ultimate prize. Even native Brahman borough resident George Bush Sr. claimed to relate more to a longhorn wrangler than a lobsterman, and subsequently dispatched Michael Dukakis -- one of those, as Richard Nixon put it, "damned New England intellectuals and Massachusetts liberals."

Never mind that the Bay State has had four straight Republican governors; fortunes and perception could soon be on the mend. Boston could once again win a major championship, hold a national convention, tear down the rusting artery of ancestral highways, and see one of its native sons return to the White House. The latter event would represent a coup for a region and a party beleaguered by the "L" word. In John Kerry, the Democrats may have just chosen their version of the New England Patriots to be their nominee for the 2004 Super Bowl of politics, and it is not because their presumptive choice is a fellow resident of Massachusetts.

John Kerry's rise in Iowa and New Hampshire can only be accounted for by one word: consistency. It is a word that Kerry himself has shied away from in his legislative life. He voted against the first Gulf War, a war the international community and the United Nations deemed worthy; he voted for the more recent yet internationally disdained Iraqi war, and then he voted against funding the reconstruction of the very country he gave President Bush the authority to attack. Similar blatant and subtle inconsistencies clutter Kerry's senatorial record, yet the primary and forthcoming general election have not and will not be determined by highlighting such legislative fumbles, but rather events outside of the junior senator's control.

Kerry aided but did not completely determine his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. He played smart, simple, and efficiently in the town halls and rural communities where he could recount stories from the jungles of Vietnam and highlight a resume and career that cried presidential. Kerry's speeches failed to produce the fire of a Dean sermon, or to swoon the electorate with the dimples of John Edwards. There were no references to being a general or the son of a general mill worker.

With no populist narratives of childhood parsimony, the lifelong patrician produced a steady delivery of policy speeches and admonitions to the Bush White House. This consistency allowed voters to feel comfortable about the candidate -- not inspired, not emotionally attached, but self-assured that his was a campaign free from gaffes and stumbles that the media and the Republicans could exploit. His stability in the face of voter volatility and candidate unpredictability made him a staid candidate for voter refuge. The confluence of outside events coupled with this stoic campaign style allowed Kerry to reemerge as the favorite son of Caucus goers and primary voters, cementing the senator as the preeminent candidate to take on the Bush administration in November.

What John Kerry provides the electorate is sufficiency. He has Howard Dean's anti-war stance without the extremism, and Wesley Clark's military credentials without the general's questionable disposition and lack of political experience. He can solidify labor and union support without seeming to be a political liaison of those factions. Geographic disadvantage will be ameliorated with a strong southern running mate, possibly someone who could also soften John Kerry's scarecrow appearance. Voters can find solace in his resume, credentials, and ability to campaign without complaining about the establishment, the media, and Terry McAuliffe. Like his hometown Patriots, Kerry is unassuming, lacks flashiness, and always finds a way to seize victory when it appears out of reach. He exudes the traits that make many of the other candidates tempting and attractive, but in a more refined, distilled, and less volatile manner. It is a simpler solution, but a far more efficient one as a result.

The general election will not be dictated by rhetoric, policy proposal, or candidate attitudes. Rather, it will be one dominated by macro events instead of micro issues. It will be a referendum on whether the war in Iraq was worth it, on the perceived erosion of civil liberties, on the ideological direction of American politics, on a unilateral and alienating foreign policy, on whether lost jobs have been regained, on whether the American people can trust the Bush White House, and on whether America is inherently safer from its enemies than it was four years ago. As voters in Iowa and New Hampshire have determined, John Kerry might not represent the best Democrat in the field, but he might be the only candidate sufficient enough to defeat George Bush in the general election. What he lacks in style and substance he makes up for in efficiency and durability. The viability of any Democratic candidate against George W. Bush will be determined mostly by events outside the candidate's control. If the pendulum swings towards Bush, no Democrat could defeat him. If it swings the other way, the only Democrat who could defeat the incumbent is one steady enough, consistent enough, and sufficient enough not to roil the pristine waters of fate.

In elections of referendum, the ideal adversarial candidate does not necessarily need to paint the grandest vision and most inspiring message to win, but rather, embody enough fortitude and patience to let electoral factors take their natural course. If John Kerry plays the political game as the New England Patriots have played football over the past twenty weeks -- steady, efficient, simple, and mistake-free -- then celebration in the region should extend well-beyond Sunday's exuberance of another Super Bowl appearance for the Boston based team.

Adam Blickstein is a Senior majoring in Political Science and is President of the Tufts Democrats.