John Kerry's Political Portrait - Essay Example

John Kerry Born on December 11, 1943 at Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, John Kerry is today leading the campaign for a change in policyon Iraq. He's been a vociferous critic of the Iraq war and the casualties. Perhaps 60,000 is the figure, the number of votes, which stood between his (and Democrat) style of Iraq policy and the present one. After gracefully accepting the defeat, what is remarkable is, he has been in the forefront of pointing out holes in the policies of the present regime. After the presidential elections, in a meeting of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry nailed Condoleezza Rice (Kaplan, 2005) on the issue of sending in more forces to Iraq. In response to Rice's remark that, "The rise of the insurgency was an 'unforeseen' development in Iraq, Kerry said (Kaplan, 2005), "There was nothing "unforeseen" about the insurgent's re-emergence. He added that, "The U.S. military 'encouraged' them to vanish from the battlefield, promising to pay them if they did so, but we didn't pay them". This resulted in their becoming angry and organized. To understand the situation, he himself went on a tour to Iraq. This shows that Kerry firmly believes in studying and analyzing the situations first hand. Public Presentation: Though Sen. John Kerry has been a known figure in national politics since 1971, but it was during the Presidential elections campaign that we could see a multifaceted personality during all of TV shows, debates and election rallies. He started off as a lone ranger, in contrast to the huge hype created around President Bush, but gradually succeeded in picking up the pace solely on the basis of his uncanny ability to address the issues in right perspective. His grasp on foreign affairs has been the key in giving his popularity graph a big boost. Though George W. Bush appears to have an edge as far as mesmerizing the audience is concerned but John Kerry makes his mark amongst the intellectuals. As the campaign progressed, the general public too started taking notice of his able leadership and he was able to put up a tough fight in front of George Bush. Nurturing his constituency: In the national politics Massachusetts has remained overwhelmingly Democratic (Almanac, 2006). The state voted for John Kerry 62%-37% in 2004. George W. Bush could top 40% only in Plymouth County and Cape Cod, and the northeast Boston suburbs in Essex County. Politics in Massachusetts for years has been a kind of culture war between Yankee Republicans and Irish Democrats. With a population of 6,349,097 (Almanac, 206) and rural-urban composition of 8.6%-91.4%, the state today boasts of almost 100% employment figures. That's indeed a feather in the cap of the officials representing the state. Prosperity of the people in the state is further evident by the rising income levels of the people with majority of the job holders (i.e. 67%) being white collar, while 18.7% hold blue collar and 14.3% hold gray collar jobs. The composition of state is; Ethnic Divisions Religions European descent 84% Protestant 56% African descent 12% Roman Catholic 28% Asian descent 3% None 10% Amerindian 1% Other 4% Note: Latinos and Hispanics may fall into any of the ethnic categories listed above % Jewish 2% Garnering majority support from such diverse group of people takes good deal of statesmanship on the part of the representatives. A July Gallup Poll of minorities' political opinions indicated that black voters overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party, and the percentage of African-Americans who consider themselves Republicans lingers at about 9 percent (Bell, 2005). But, there are also reports suggesting that Blacks in general are shifting their loyalties away from Democrats. That's really a cause of concern for the democrats. Reputation: Kerry came to the Senate with a reputation as a strong liberal (Almanac, 2006). He has been able to hold similar voting record to fellow Senator Edward Kennedy, but with differences of nuance and interest. Kerry has been more respectful of economic free markets and more inclined in some cases to support an expansive US foreign and military policy. During the early years of his tenure in Senate, he remained more of a backbencher, not much visible active legislature. But he believed in working effectively behind the scenes. His senior colleague Edward Kennedy on the other hand has been active on many legislative issues, as well as Massachusetts causes for many years now. But the fact that he's not been involved in serious controversies goes to say a lot about his character and beliefs in himself and his brand of politics. After loosing the Presidential election of 2004, Kerry has been a busy man, traveling the country, spreading money to other Democratic candidates, and keeping in place a campaign infrastructure that was ready for another presidential bid (Klein, 2007). But Kerry acted like a suave politician when in one masterstroke he blunted the attack of some of his detractors, when he announced that he is not in the running for the 2008 Presidential election race. Voice on major issues: John Kerry has been fierce war critic after initially supporting the invasion of Iraq. John Kerry's decided in 2003 to vote against Bush's $87 billion request to fund the war in Iraq (Brownstein, 2005). That vote became an albatross for Kerry in the general election when Bush used it as his prime example to accuse the Democrat, who had voted to authorize the war, of flip-flopping on issues. This move was influenced to some extent by the online campaigns going on at that time. These online campaigns were also used by Democrats in a big way to collect huge funds. President Bush has even leveled the charge of the Democrats that they have been criticizing the war without offering any solution. To answer this criticism, Democrats have come out with their own plan for solving the Iraq tangle. John Kerry has been a major influence in preparing this paper. John Kerry is also known to echo his candid thought on a range of issues like, election reforms, climate change, Medicare costs Estimates and the Health Care Crisis in America, heath insurance for every child in America, foreign policy and a range of economic issues. Since the year 2004, John Kerry has been a very visible and vocal face of Democrats on majority of the issues. He has therefore prepared for himself a ground good enough for yet another stint as the representative of the people of Massachusetts. After announcing his intention for not contesting the Presidential elections 2008, his claim for Massachusetts becomes all the more convincing. References: 1. Welcome to Senator Kerry's Online Office, available online at http://kerry.senate.gov/text/home.html (Feb 13, 2007) 2. Presidency 2008: US Senator John F. Kerry (Democrat - Massachusetts) http://politics1.com/p2008-kerry.htm (Feb 13, 2007) 3. Kaplan, Fred (2005), Rice and Dice: John Kerry nails Condoleezza Rice on Iraq. Jan. 18, 2005, available online at http://www.slate.com/id/2112386/ (Feb 13, 2007). 4. Bell, Kaitlin (2005), More young blacks ready to embrace GOP, Globe Correspondent , available online at http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/08/22/more_young_blacks_ready_to_embrace_gop/ (Feb 13, 2007). 5. Klein, Rick (2007), Kerry won't run for president in '08, Globe Staff January 24, 2007. Available online at, http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/01/24/kerry_to_bow_out_of_08_presidential_race/ (Feb 13, 2007) 6. Brownstein, Ronald (2005), 'Politics: The Internet and Democrats', National Journal, July 1, 2005. Read More