Election 2004: Studying the Democratic Candidates

A Psychobiographer’s Tasks and Ambivalence: In a weak moment back in 2002, I asked the editor of the Journal of Psychohistory if he would like me to write my customary presidential psychobiographical article in the form of a comparison of the Democratic and Republican candidates. As usual, he said yes, giving me a June 1^st deadline. I must confess to enormous pride, as well as ambivalence, regarding my role as a presidential candidate psychobiographer. Let me start with the pride.

It is extraordinarily important to know as much as possible about the childhood, personality, life traumas, political pattern, policies, and values of the individual who will be president. This is so because this person will have power over life and death, as well as the ability to start or stop wars, to say nothing of lesser responsibilities. I am quite proud of the work I have done in this regard since 1976.

The sources of my ambivalence are not hard to find. First and foremost, the research is enormously time-consuming, especially during a period of almost weekly candidate debates and forums starting after Labor Day and extending into at least late February or early March when a clear victory emerges. For two years now, I have been watching the potential and declared candidates on C-SPAN television and other news networks when I could have been watching a nice old movie or reading a good book. My office and life have become cluttered with clippings from magazines and newspapers, though I do not yet fear, thanks to electronic storage, that I will be literally buried in paper as were the Collyer brothers in 1947. The New York Times may claim to have “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” but since the business of Washington is politics, I find The Washington Post (I settle for the weekly National Edition until the campaign becomes quite heated) to be an indispensable source

Page 144

of information regarding our next President. Online sources are also quite helpful. My ambivalence goes beyond the enormous amount of work required to do this job properly. There is the issue of how to find materials suitable for psychohistorical analysis amidst the masses of information available. There is the problem of trying to predict who will emerge as the winner when there is a large field of candidates – particularly since there are often latecomers, like Senator John McCain in 2003 and third party candidates like Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004.

My hesitation also involves the growing frustration with the polarized politics of Washington. Nevertheless, here I am again; collecting data and hoping that this work will not cut too deeply into my time in writing about the history of psychohistory during my sabbatical semester.

The Permanent Presidential Campaign in Its Invisible Phase: In this era of the permanent presidential campaign, a major question arises: When do the invisible campaigns become visible? This varies, partly as a function of the electorate’s discontent with the sitting president. The extraordinary proliferation of news outlets also makes a difference as they search for grist for their mills. The peculiarities of the present system are heightened by candidates who actively run for six months or a year and then, when they think the time is right, formally announce their campaigns so they can receive additional news coverage. During the invisible part of their campaigns, they have been raising funds, hiring campaign managers, pollsters, and other staff, and organizing focus groups to determine what ideas and words are most appealing to different groups of voters in the primaries.

King-of-the-Mountain and Everybody Wants to be Your Friend: A more important question than when the presidential campaign becomes visible to a mass public, is who will emerge as the frontrunner of the party. Leading the field has powerful advantages and disadvantages, depending partly on the timing. The rewards for facing the plaudits and abuse of being declared the leading candidate can be enormous. Some of the best (and most expensive) political operatives want to work in your campaign, while people you never met donate money because they want to influence your positions, have access to you should you be elected, or just find a champion to displace the person/party in power. There is a bandwagon effect if the frontrunner survives the abuse and scrutiny of rivals and maintains this position. Supporters want to jump on the frontrunner’s bandwagon early, hoping they will be remembered after Election Day when the victorious candidate distributes the “goodies”. Thus, Al Gore, Tom Harkin, Carol Braun, some important white-collar unions, and others jumped on former Governor Howard Dean’s bandwagon early on. To their disappointment, Dean’s seemingly unstoppable parade began to slow to a crawl in the weeks before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. The current rush is to join the Kerry parade that is heading for the Democratic National Convention in Boston without a great deal of opposition after his major rivals conceded to him after his March 2 Super Tuesday victories. What happens in cases like that of Howard Dean?

Early on, the frontrunner becomes the target of criticism by all the other candidates, and investigative journalists, who are out to make a name for themselves by bringing down the mighty, or the would-be mighty. This reminds me of a childhood game called “King-of-the-Mountain,” in which all the boys combine to knock down the child on top of the mound, who has declared himself “King-of-the-Mountain.” Given the odds of one boy against many, usually, the “king’s” reign is brief. In politics, the “King-of-Mountain” is called the frontrunner. Journalists and public opinion polls apply this designation at a stage in the process when not enough of the electorate is involved for the label to mean much on election days. Experienced politicians, like John Kerry, try to avoid this designation until the nomination is assured. If successful, this strategy helps the candidate evade the higher expectations, intense journalistic investigative scrutiny, and the criticism of rivals, facing the favorite as the “one to beat.” (See below for more discussion for the reason Dean’s campaign collapsed so abruptly.)

Senators and Governors in the Presidential Sweepstakes: There is something about being a senator that makes individuals subject to the contagion of presidential fever. Senators Biden, Daschle, and Dodd, almost came down with it, while Bob

Page 145

Graham of Florida caught it but was cured within several months by the cool temperature of the voters he approached. On the campaign trail, Senator Graham, also a former governor, often put aside his courtly manner, and excoriated President Bush for the secrecy of his administration, inept policies, and failure to pursue “Osama bin Forgotten.” John Edwards of North Carolina caught the fever in his very first term in the Senate, even though he had no prior political experience. His autobiography, Four Trials (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004 [really 2003]) was written with a Professor of English, and recounts aspects of his trials and life (the trials of life might be more helpful for my purposes), including the essay he wrote as an 11 year old, preserved by his “Mamma,” on “why I want to be a lawyer.” His desire to “protect innocent people from blind justice the best I can” (p. 7) is in keeping with his presidential primary campaign rhetoric. He proved himself to be a most effective campaigner, with a consistent message, and spoke in sound bytes, which is a most valuable asset.

Carol Mosley Braun, a former one-term senator from Illinois, carried the mantle for women in the 2004 election; however, she was not a very impressive candidate, despite being well-spoken and getting considerable exposure in the weekly Democratic debates in the Fall of 2003. C-SPAN’s coverage of her candidacy announcement showed only media at the event, and she received only a few drops of the mother’s milk of political success—campaign contributions. The earliest book on the campaign reports that Braun “appears to be doing virtually nothing beyond gracing the dais at multi-candidate forums” (Walter Shapiro, One-Car Caravan: On the Road with the 2004 Democrats Before America Tunes In [NY: Public Affairs, 2003], p. 145).

Joseph Lieberman, a three-term Senator, and John Forbes Kerry, with four terms, had more time than Edwards and Braun to build up their credentials and think about changing their address to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Senator from Connecticut wrote In Praise of Public Life (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2000) and, together with his wife and Sarah Crichton, An Amazing Adventure: Joe and Hadassah’s Personal Notes on the 2000 Campaign (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2003). In the latter, they alternate their responses to the 2000 run for the vice-presidency. Hadassah provides a vivid account of the pressure of incessant media scrutiny: for example, she describes reporters falling out of her forsythia bushes where they laid in waiting for her husband as she put out her garbage in her bathrobe and bare feet. John Kerry, A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America (NY: Viking of Penguin, 2003), in contrast to the Liebermans’ folksiness, presents a somewhat more formal statement of his vision of America, which is in keeping with his oft-described presidential look. The book of this junior senator from Massachusetts is clearly in the tradition of John Kennedy’s call to service which influenced the young Kerry.

In recent years, governors, or former governors, have been more readily elected to the presidency than senators. After all, JFK, in 1960, was the last senator elected to the presidency directly, while George W. Bush (2000), Carter (1976), Clinton (1992), and Reagan (1980) were the governors elected president. (I am excluding those who became president through the vice-presidency, which is a more frequent route for senators.) Four governors elected, compared to one senator since 1960, is prima facie evidence that voters tend to believe that governors have the executive experience necessary for the presidency, while senators do not. An additional explanatory factor for the victory of governors may be that senators are so well known in Washington that their competitors can quickly marshal arguments and advertisements against them at decisive moments in the campaign. (If John Forbes Kerry is elected president in 2004, future historians may no longer use the initials JFK to refer to John Fitzgerald Kennedy to avoid confusion. Kerry wore a JFK tie clasp when he rooted for his fellow Massachusetts native in the 1960s.)

It is worth noting that three of the Democratic contenders (the New Englanders Dean [class of 1971], Lieberman [1964], and Kerry [1966]) were at Yale in the 1960s. (Clinton and Cheney also attended Yale: Clinton in the Law School from 1970-73 and Cheney as an undergraduate in 1959, before dropping out and later taking his degrees elsewhere.) I will not forget to include our New England born and educated (Andover, Yale [class of 1968], and Harvard) current president, even

Page 146

though he views himself as a West Texan, and has cultivated that image throughout his life. John Kerry, like three generations of Bushes (Senator Prescott, G. H. W. and W. Bush), was even selected to the exclusive, secretive Skull and Bones Society at Yale, which admits only 15 seniors in each class.

These days, the media mostly gather together like geese on migration or police to crime scenes. Fortunately, there are a few who risk loneliness, starting early in the game rather than following the crowd. Walter Shapiro is a political columnist who went on the campaign trail so early (the late summer of 2002) that he was sitting in the back of a van or car with the candidate for extended periods. The only declared candidate at the time was a five-term governor of Vermont, whose one traveling aide drove the car and did almost everything else. The long-time political reporter found the doctor-politician to have a wonderful memory as they chatted about the 1961 New York Yankees, the political philosophy Dean learned in his political science courses at Yale, and much else.

Howard Dean’s Internet Campaign: It was only in 2001 that Governor Dean learned how to do email and probe the Internet but his candidacy for president was galvanized by its use. Joe Trippi, at a time when he was being hailed as the most innovative and successful of the campaign managers, rather than as an idiosyncratic loser as he was when the Dean presidential drive collapsed, thought it a “great myth” that he was running the campaign. In Trippi’s five or six previous excursions into presidential primaries, he declared that it “has always been command and control from the top down,” while the challenge in the Dean campaign “has been to let people create their own energy.” After awhile, they proudly called themselves “Deaniacs.” A month like last September saw over 1,200 local events listed on the Dean Web site. Through “Meet-up.com,” a free and independent Internet site, people with similar interests have met together to support Dean. They provided their own money, organizational talents, and energy, while the official campaign concentrated on key early states like New Hampshire and Iowa. To keep novice volunteers in compliance with Federal Election Commission rules on monetary and time contributions, the organized campaign communicated to the volunteers throughout the country on Dean’s official Web site, www.deanforamerica.com (Lois Romano, “Bottom’s Up: Dean’s Grass-roots Support is Turning Presidential Politics Upside Down,” Washington Post National Edition 9/11-10/5/03:11).

The psychology of the grass roots Internet campaign is what interests me most. There has been a rapid online establishment of individuals and groups supporting candidates. Capability and commitment, rather than age and experience, determined who played what role. The 17-year-old, who ran Dean’s Alaska campaign, is an example of this phenomenon. The anonymity of the Internet enabled diverse populations to play significant roles. The political establishment and press were enormously impressed with the Dean campaign’s use of the Internet in raising money ($41 million was the figure bandied about) and bringing young people into the political process. In the end, the “Deaniacs’” ability to bring voters to the primaries was much less impressive than anticipated. It is hard to say how much of this failure may be attributed to the mistakes of their inexperienced candidate in the face of the intense scrutiny of the frontrunner and to the co-opting of his message by his major rivals.

Books by and on the “Internet Candidate” that I was reading in 2003 and January of this year are Howard Dean’s Winning Back America (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2003); Lisa Rogak’s (ed.) Howard Dean: In His Own Words (NY: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003); and Dirk Van Susteren’s (ed.) Howard Dean: A Citizen’s Guide to the Man Who Would Be President (South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 2003). Dean’s books provide significant biographical information but do not emphasize his life story because growing up on Park Avenue and in Sag Harbor did not differentiate him enough from Senator Kerry or the Republican blue-blood he hoped to defeat in November, as the advocate of ordinary people. Born in 1948, the eldest of four sons, he rebelled against his father’s (Big Howard’s) conservative Republican affiliations and values. Shortly after graduation, he turned away from his father’s life of money making through finance, to helping people as a doctor. He also reached out beyond his white Anglo-Saxon, Protestant upper crust social group to others,

Page 147

requesting minority roommates at Yale, attending a medical school founded by Jews, marrying a Jew, and allowing his wife to raise their children primarily as Jews.

Dean’s amazing rise from being a little known governor of a small state to the apparently unstoppable frontrunner was based upon his catching the mood of anger, especially of young voters, over the Iraq war, the Patriot Act, and self-serving Washington politicians. His main competitors were initially slow to criticize him, partly because they underestimated him. Later, the more successful among them adjusted their own message to mirror his intense attack on Bush and the 2003 Iraq War.

Howard Dean’s ultimate failure has a variety of causes most of which say more about his competitors and the electorate than his weaknesses. The negative, mutually-attacking advertisements of Gephardt and Dean in Iowa, hurt both, and knocked Gephardt out of the race since his neighboring state was a “have-to” win for him. Jon Haber, Chief of Staff for the Dean Campaign, called it a Dean Gephardt mutual “murder-suicide” (C-SPAN on March 11, 2004). In the end, many of Dean’s young supporters turned out to not be Dean voters in the primaries. A significant number of Democratic voters decided that they needed a candidate who could challenge Bush as a leader in wartime; something Clark or Kerry could do far better than Dean. The rush of endorsements for Dean had a sobering effect on voters at a time when he faced the full scrutiny of the press in December and January. The former governor did not handle this examination like a major league politician. Edwards was proving himself to be an excellent campaigner. John Kerry’s campaign had become energized in the late Fall and most especially in the final phase before the crucial early decisions in Iowa and New Hampshire. The media’s handling of Dean’s “I’ve Got a Scream Speech,” on the evening of his surprising disappointing third place showing in Iowa, led to his quick marginalization as not having the temperament for the presidency, and was the source of endless jokes by television comedians. (In retrospect, many observers insist that he had to scream to be heard over the noise of his boisterous young adherents and a poor public address system.) Though much of his support came from his verbalizing anger against Bush, in his speech, Dean was portrayed as crossing the line by what appeared to be the out of control anger of a fanatical hockey dad. This fits one of my theories that we want our politicians to express our anger, but we also are quick to disown the anger because of our ambivalence and shared reaction formations.

Another General Running for President and the Issue of Military Experience:

Generals run for president, although less frequently than senators and governors. Sometimes running is as a result of overarching ambition although it may be at the urging of more politically astute types who are looking for a viable candidate. Thus, retired general Dwight D. Eisenhower had both the Democratic and Republican parties knocking at his door after WWII. Twelve American presidents have been generals (Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Pierce, Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Harrison, and Eisenhower) and most have had military experience. Indeed, only 12 to 15 of the 42 presidents have not had military experience (the 12-15 range is because my sources are contradictory). Only lawyers have been more successful than generals in acquiring the presidency. However, Eisenhower (1952-1960) was the only general to become president since Benjamin Harrison’s election in 1888. Teddy Roosevelt may have temporarily assuaged America’s desire for a warrior-president because the six presidents following him had not served in the military, though FDR did serve as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (1913-1920).

I was hoping that Clinton’s election would break the focus on military experience present in post WWII presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush the Elder. However, because Clinton took so much FLAK for his handling of the issue of homosexuals in the military, after having avoided the draft while protesting the Vietnam War, it became likely that the next president would have some military credentials and, perhaps, use the military more. Our current President, a national guardsman who, like so many others of his generation, evaded service in Vietnam, has certainly focused on his role as commander-in-chief and has been quick to use the military in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Page 148

Many Democratic voters have shown a preference for men with military experience during this series of primaries. Wesley Clark’s emergence in mid-September, as both a Democrat and presidential contender is a prime example of this. First he declared his candidacy for president, and then, during the following week, amidst fanfare and dubious polls that showed he could beat Bush, he joined the party. Though Clark was not successful in his presidential bid, many felt that he was also in the race to be noticed as a potential vice-presidential choice to strengthen the national defense credentials of the 2004 Democratic contender. Senator Kerry, whose campaign had been pronounced dead by many pundits, came out fighting in the fall and, in October, I noticed him surrounded by veterans he had fought with in Vietnam. His first wife wrote, as quoted in Douglas Brinkley’s Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War (NY: Harper Collins, 2004, p. 443), “He’s always at his best when he’s with those [veterans] guys, they make him capable. He really loves them all in a profound way.” Watching Kerry’s face and body language when surrounded by former Senator Max Cleland, a triple amputee, and veterans from the Swift Boat he commanded in Vietnam, verifies her judgment. According to Brinkley, in previous elections, his ex-wife has been successful in keeping his opponents from using her to hurt his political career.

Wesley K. Clark (Kanne is his birth name and his natural father was Jewish), a West Point educated Rhodes scholar and highly political general, did not get along well with his peers in the military. This was primarily because he was brighter than most, did not focus on their “macho” rules, and was openly political. He was making a name for himself as head of NATO and as a peacekeeping general in Bosnia and Kosovo when he was fired by Clinton’s Secretary of Defense for his lack of respect for the chain of command and his political mistakes. By comparison, Collin Powell was so diplomatic that his military career thrived under Democrats and Republicans, and it is no accident that he is serving as America’s chief diplomat rather than as the head of the Department of Defense. After several years of making money and pontificating as a defense analyst, Clark jumped into the scramble for the Democratic nomination at the urging of former President Clinton. He had the added advantage of being from the Sunbelt, whence all presidents since Ford (who only needed Nixon’s vote) have come to the presidency. The two books Clark wrote after his discharge from the Army, mainly to bolster his finances and credentials as a military analyst, shed some light on his thinking. They are Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism, and the American Empire (NY: Public Affairs, 2003) and Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (NY: Public Affairs, 2001). Clark was not alone in having his eyes on the number two spot, John Edwards was extremely careful to avoid criticizing his leading competitors until he found himself in an essentially two-man race before Super Tuesday (March 2). Even then, he held back, and upon conceding he stressed his friendship with the victorious Kerry.

One might argue that men with military experience are either more or less warlike than those without it. Wilson was as close to being a pacifist as we have had in the White House until he got involved in “the war to end all wars.” Eisenhower, a career military man, was not very warlike, though he certainly had hawkish types in his administration. Both Bushes have been equally willing to take us into war despite the father’s serious involvement in WWII (his plane was shot down over the Pacific and both of his crew members died) as a naval aviator and his son’s avoidance of service in Vietnam (a war he supported but did not think much about) by flying planes in the Texas National Guard.

September 11th frightened many Americans into a collective fantasy focusing on a strong, commander-in-chief type of president. Regrettably, this is a reality we will have to deal with for some time.

Other Candidates: These included two congressmen and one minister. The early demise of the candidacy of former Democratic congressional leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri was related to his negative campaign message in Iowa. Democratic primary voters punished both Dean and Gephardt for being quite critical of each other, rather than saving their negativity for President Bush. Had Gephardt been more successful, those following the campaign would have been reading his 1999 book, with Michael Wessel, An Even Better Place: Amer-

Page 149

ica in the 21st Century. Though Congressman Dennis Kucinich never had a chance of getting elected, to advance his candidacy he wrote A Prayer for America (2003), together with Studs Terkel.

Running for president can be a narcissistic high for all candidates and for some a stepping stone to professional advancement having nothing to do with the presidency. This is clearly the case for a child preacher who has often been in the news. The Reverend [the title appears on the book cover] Al Sharpton, Al on America (NY: Kensington Publishing Co, 2002), provides a lively read and, in public appearances, led the candidates in humor. On at least one occasion he even broke out into song and dance on the campaign trail, a reminder that he had been road manager for the singer James Brown from 1973-80. He worked to get people to try to forget his past as a demagogue, to win enough support to get to speak at the Democratic Convention in the footsteps of Jesse Jackson, and to begin a new career as a cable television and radio host. By late February he hired the William Morris talent agency to help achieve the latter goal.

Identification With and Countertransference to the Candidates: Analysts of the candidates and the political process come to identify with candidates for a variety of reasons that extend beyond the specific policies advocated. There is the practical issue of the candidate you have spent the most time researching and whose books you have read. After buying and starting to read various book last fall, I wondered how reporters who give up the niceties of home to follow candidates come to root for the candidate they invested their time and energy reporting on. The social psychological principle of self-justification influences humans to justify what we have done after we have done it, simply because we did it. So, committing months to a candidate and his ideas and works, may require justification merely for having made the commitment. Personally, I pay close attention to my own “gut” reactions to each candidate, recording Freudian slips and dreams about them. Countertransference feelings are as important to monitor with candidates as with patients.

The Costs of Running for President: The dream of becoming president is one that relatively few Americans pursue. This is not surprising given the unlikelihood of success and the extraordinary costs of the journey. Candidates with any serious chance of nomination (this excluded Braun, Kucinich, and Sharpton in the 2004 sweepstakes) lose almost all privacy and must pursue a manic pace that is utterly exhausting, and somewhat dehumanizing. They are surrounded by people from morning until night, seven days a week, until Election Day, yet they have almost no real relationship with these people. Handlers whisper what to say as they rush their candidate into yet another hall where people applaud him or her for arriving and cheer him for repeating clichés. Seemingly endless hands are shaken, photographs taken of smiling faces, and yet there is no real conversation. There is no time to listen to and exchange ideas with each other in the way thoughtful people do. Consequently, confusions are not clarified and errors are not acknowledged. If a candidate alters an idea, he is immediately charged with flip-flopping, opportunism, and weakness. He then gets blasted in the media and learns not to do it again if he wants to be the winning candidate. From supporters, and those close to him, he receives endless flattery. An enormous number of people want a piece of him, because he could be our next president. People project their own hopes and wishes onto him, seeing him as their secular savior.

Some candidates made valiant efforts to protect their families from the engulfing nature of the electoral process. Howard Dean pledged to not miss any of his 17-year-old son’s hockey games but, in early January, he was violating this promise as he cancelled his trip back to Burlington. Similarly, the Dean family’s effort to allow Dr. Judith Steinberg to attend to her patients in Vermont rather than her husband’s campaign also fell by the wayside after his disappointing showings in Iowa and New Hampshire. Teresa Heinz Kerry’s initial ambivalence about her husband’s running and her campaigning with him was a casualty of the campaign. As a psychobiographer, I find it interesting to watch the wives and children on the campaign trail because it informs me about them and their family dynamics. While being moved around and managed like a young child, the primary candidate hears a grandiose image of himself. The whole process is depersonalizing, dehumanizing, and falsely inflating, yet it prepares the winning candi-

Page 150

date for the intensity of the fall campaign and the incredibly more demanding process of being president.

Life’s Surprises: The challenge of facing the realities and surprises of life on the campaign trail are enormous. Both Kerry and Gephardt faced the illnesses and deaths of their mothers during the campaign. Kerry, who sometimes seemed like a “sad sack” to journalist Walter Shapiro, faced not only this blow, but prostate cancer and the revelation that his paternal grandfather (Fred Kerry) was born Jewish (as Kritz Kohn in the Austrian Empire) and had committed suicide in 1921 by gun shot in a Boston hotel’s men’s room (Shapiro, p. 186). Death certainly has impacts on human beings. Shapiro noted that, when his brother died in 1974 in Southeast Asia, Howard Dean switched careers from Wall Street finance to medicine, and when his father and namesake died in 2001, within the month, he declared for “the big prize” of the presidency. The candidate’s response, in the back of a van headed for an Iowa political meeting, was that “it’s an interesting coincidence, worthy of discussion, but no light is likely to be shed on it in five minutes or an hour” (Shapiro, p. 189). He recognized that focus is essential to victory, which certainly contributed to his not pursuing Shapiro’s thoughtful observations. While campaigning, Wesley Clark discovered he had a half-brother, but did not want to meet him until after the election. This reminds me that, as a result of his running for office, his fellow Arkansan, Bill Clinton, discovered that the father he never knew not only had several wives prior to his mother, but also had at least one other son and, therefore, that he had another half-brother. Regarding brothers, the eldest have been more inclined to become president than their younger siblings. Both the current President Bush and John Kerry are first born sons.

The Prospect of a First Lady with an Unusual Background: If Joe Lieberman had won the nomination and been elected, his wife would have been an atypical First Lady. Hadassah was born in Europe as the child of Holocaust survivors, coming to these shores speaking only Yiddish. If Kerry should be elected president, his second wife (Teresa Heinz Kerry, who was born as Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira), would be an unusual First Lady in a number of respects. She is a linguist who speaks five languages and was born in Africa as the daughter of Portuguese immigrants to Mozambique 65 years ago. This outspoken woman is five years older than her husband and much richer than him. She was widowed and he was divorced. Philanthropy and the environment are two of her major concerns.

The Democratic Primary Winner and the Outcome of This Research: John Forbes Kerry, the tallest (the taller candidates usually have a significant advantage) at six foot three inches and the most Lincolnesque looking of the candidates, struck me as the most introspective and thoughtful of the Democratic field. He sometimes muses in public, unusual for a politician at his level, and has published several books including The New Soldier (1971 and today on sale used on Abebooks.com for

$600-1500!). Julia Thorne, his ex-wife, has even written a self-help book, You Are Not Alone: Words of Experience and Hope for the Journey Through Depression (1993), based upon her own struggle. Kerry is a man who does not easily speak, except in the heat of political battle, in sound bytes – a distinct disadvantage in a campaign for the presidency. We will know more about him as a politician in April with the publication of John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography: By the Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best, by Michael Kranish, Brian C. Mooney, and Nina J. Easton (Boston: Public Affairs, 432 pp., ISBN no. 15864827). (This information was obtained from Amazon.com.)

For information on Kerry as a soldier and man, we are fortunate to have a fine, partial biography on him by the distinguished historian, Douglas Brinkley, whose 546-page book focuses on Kerry’s service in Vietnam but covers the Senator’s entire life. Brinkley interviewed the Senator nine times in addition to more than 100 other people for the volume. He also used Kerry’s letters and journals from his college and Vietnam years as sources. The resulting book is being mined these days by journalists, as well as his political friends and enemies, for their own purposes. I recommend that you consider reading it as well.

Kerry will be tested on the campaign trail,

Page 151

just as he was in Vietnam on a noisy Swift Boat going down narrow rivers with the Vietcong firing on him from both shores. At the moment President Bush has already raised 158 million dollars for his reelection campaign. The Republican plan is to negatively define, specifically within the next three months, Kerry as a flip flopping, soft on defense, big spending Massachusetts liberal. Bush has been carefully making speeches and raising money in the states the Democrats have held their most heated primaries and on March 20 he formally declared his candidacy. It is unusual for a president to not maintain a “Rose Garden” strategy by which they act above the fray of politics until after the nominating conventions. The president as the national leader and commander-in-chief is less subject to criticism than the president as candidate who is fair game for censure. Bush may discover, as Dean did and before him the Vietcong, that Kerry is an extremely tough counter puncher who inclines to take the struggle to the opponent. His situation is improved by the unity of the Democratic Party.

My psychobiographical explorations will result in the aforementioned comparison of the 2004 Democratic and Republican standard-bearers. Some will also be shared at the International Psychohistorical Association’s June 2, 2004 panel of the Psychohistory Forum’s Research Group on the Childhood, Personality, and Psychology of Presidential Candidates and Presidents, with presenters Herbert Barry and Dan Dervin. I may present additional findings at the International Society for Political Society in Lund, Sweden, this coming July. As usual, in the month or two prior to the decisive vote, the Forum will have a Saturday Work-In-Progress Seminar on the candidates and the psychology of the electoral process. Throughout the campaign season, the interplay of the candidates with the changing emotions of the electorate will be explored. All of what I learn will be shared with my students. Most importantly, the result of my studies will determine whom I vote for come the first Tuesday in November.

Page 152