Newsday's Marie Cocco: "John Kerry has Proved His Mettle."

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-vpcoc223636467jan22,0,1937376.column?coll=ny-news-columnists

"He showed that he wouldn't give up and fought back and went out and did what everyone's been hoping someone would do, which was be the giant killer," said Michael Lux, a Washington political consultant who works for Democratic-leaning interest groups. The language of war pervades this campaign. The national circumstances - and the incumbent president - will have it no other way. Kerry speaks it fluently.

<>Graham Elliot Bowles, a chef who traveled two hours from Vermont to the chili supper, said that watching news coverage of the emotional reunion last weekend in Iowa between Kerry and Jim Rassman, the former Green Beret a young Lt. Kerry pulled to safety from the waters of a Vietnamese river as their boat was under enemy fire, filled in a blank. "That really showed me the humanity of John Kerry," Bowles said in an interview. "It didn't look like he was some kind of pre-programmed candidate."

The public Kerry does not often talk about his personal values. You can discern them from his resumé, but not necessarily read them in his speeches. You would not know, unless you happened to read Elle magazine last May, that he began wooing his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro environmental summit-by asking if he could accompany her to Sunday mass. He sat in the pew behind her, and recited the prayers in Latin.

Kerry lacks the congenial ease with voters that marks the candidacy of a key rival, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. He does not fire up crowds the way the incendiary Dean can. He does not make an open appeal on the issue of personal integrity, as Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman does.

He doesn't have to.

[David Dunham]

1. A Cogent Analysis, But the Race Is Not Over Yet

[bryant69]

2. In some cases the press does work to our benifit

Obviuosly the press will always try to tear down our candidates; and for whatever reason they aren't going to go after President Bush. But they like to fit their stories into a convienent package, and apparently the package they've picked out for Kerry is that he's a fighter. It is a good story, and Kerry is justifiably a fighter--the way his campaign looked a couple of weeks ago, verses now. Well that's an interesting story.

Not that I'm endorsing Kerry (it's my continued opinion that all the candidates are great), just commenting that he does have some advantages right now.

Bryant
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