http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/12/174812/691Okay, I meant to excerpt just the hug part, but I am going to be more "liberal" with the excerpt of "A Hug from John Kerry", February 12, 2005:
After a brief introduction from Phil Angelides, Teresa Heinz Kerry gave a heartfelt speech. I was standing at the far left of the front row of the audience, only a few feet from each of the speakers, so I was able to read the faces on the podium quite closely. She spoke with great sincerity and directness about how much she gained from meeting people across the country. She also said that we have no time to feel discouraged ("take maybe ten minutes, and then get back to work"). She said that she has been working hard for the last two months on a new project, and though it's too early to speak of it publicly, she was very committed to it. And she spoke of attending a conference in Palo Alto that afternoon consisting of many Nobel prize winners. She encouraged them that Americans across the country will be open to current environmental science -- we just need to get it across to them despite the lack of help from the major media. Then she acknowledged the guest of honor in the front role, Ilana Wexler of Berkeley, the twelve-year-old who started Kids for Kerry and gave a speech at the convention. As she spoke, I looked to my right and there was Ilana, with tears streaming down her face, overtaken with the emotion of the moment (later I spoke with her mom, who said Ilana had been very devastated as they flew back from Boston after the concession speech in November, while at the same time touched that Kerry had mentioned her in the speech; she'd been doing pretty well the past couple of months, but hearing Teresa talk brought it all back).
During this exchange I again noticed the deep emotion in John Kerry's face; I'd observed it when Teresa first started speaking, and I could see him fighting back tears as he looked back and forth between Teresa and Ilana. I felt once again what I sensed the times I spoke with him during the campaign, including observing him closely as he spoke with the people before and after me along the rope lines; this is a man with a big heart, reserved New Englander though he may be, and he allowed his heart to be open to all of the thousands and tens of thousands of ordinary Americans he encountered during the course of the campaign. He did in fact carry us with him -- and feel the weight of the loss of the election not just in terms of his own ambition and sense of calling but also on behalf of all of us who were so deeply disappointed. He had so wanted "to bring this one home" for us.
After Teresa, Nancy Pelosi introduced Kerry, saying how impressed she was by the way Americans continued to embrace him -- her flight from DC to SF left a couple of hours after his, and she said that security personnel were still buzzing and had independently at both airports remarked to her on how hordes of people had been drawn to Kerry, wanting to touch him, get his autograph, thank him. (I think here at dKos we sometimes forget the significance of the role of our party's standardbearer, even when the election results in defeat, and how important it is that Kerry has kept out there -- speaking up in Congress, traveling to Iraq, etc. -- as opposed to Gore's disappearing act following the Supreme Court decision.)
Kerry's main message was one of gratitude to those of us in Northern California for our tremendous role not only in fundraising but in traveling across the country to the swing states. While acknowledging the heartache of defeat, he also spoke of how close we came -- and reminded people not to forget all that we accomplished, as a lead-in to exhorting us to start working NOW to lay the groundwork for retaking Congress in 2006. George Lakoff would have been pleased, I think, at how effectively he spoke of values; he continued the theme touched on in the second and third debates when he spoke of the importance of "works," or actions, as well as faith, and expanded on it as he talked of his Catholic boyhood and about the bedrock community values of the Democratic party. He also mentioned how unlikely it had seemed in 1964, in the wake of Goldwater's defeat, that there would be a Republican president in 1968; now, Democrats are laying the groundwork for a similar reversal, as we unite and work together for victory in 2006 and beyond. He acknowledged that many mistakes were made during the course of the campaign, even given all that was also achieved, and said how much he'd learned (saying if he'd known in July what he'd learned by October, it would have been a different campaign), and that he and others would draw on all we had learned as the party moves forward.
He ended the speech by saying that he'd really meant it when he said during his concession speech that he wished he could hug each and every one of us, and that at least today, in this reception hall, he'd hug as many of us as he could.
And that's what he proceeded to do: giving out hug after hug. Since I was at the front, I managed to get close to the beginning of his hugging his way across the room. He gave me a warm, deeply connected yet gentle hug (this makes a big difference to me, as I have a rare autoimmune disorder which means people can inadvertently hurt me if they hug me too hard). His eyes are very sensitive and caring; I observed how he really does his best to make contact with each person. I gave him the card and thanked him. He stuck the card in his jacket and hopefully got a chance to read it later on.
Whatever else may be said of how Kerry came across during the campaign, whenever I've had the opportunity to meet him, I've been struck by what a decent, kind, and dedicated human being he is.
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