Now we know why John Kerry's speech was so passionate, substantive, effective and authentic. He wrote it himself. Josh Marshall:
Interesting addendum to the Kerry speech story. I hear on good authority that he wrote the whole thing himself.
I tell you as a big Kerry supporter, last night was like Redemption to the nth degree. Even with MSNBC going black during his speech, I still feel like the lights have finally been turned on as to what was lost in 2004. I think it also is as good a time as any to learn a few things about John Kerry you may not have known.
The New Republic, who traditionally has not liked John Kerry, put up a story yesterday morning, quite prophetically titled "Swift return: The Strange Resurrection of John Kerry", well, minus the word "strange". In it are some remarkable revelations of how the Kerry endorsement of Obama came about:
What was most remarkable about Kerry's endorsement, however, was not the endorsement itself but the run-up to it. After being courted by Obama and Clinton for nearly a year, Kerry finally decided, a few days after Christmas, to offer his endorsement to Obama. But Obama did not want it--at least, not at that moment. The Obama campaign (rightly, as it turned out) believed that it was already on its way to winning the Iowa caucus on January 3; it also (wrongly) believed that it would win the New Hampshire primary five days later. As Kerry later recalled for me, "We just agreed that ... we should let it have its own energy, not change that dynamic, and sort of hold it until it might be needed." And so, just before midnight on January 8, hours after getting pole- axed by Clinton in New Hampshire, Obama placed a call to Kerry to say he needed that endorsement now--that is, if Kerry was still willing to give it.
So now we know his endorsement was not due to Obama's win in Iowa. It was not based on results from voters. Kerry just believed in Obama as a candidate and his campaign's message and was willing to put it all on the line before the score was run up at all. And, of course, he made good on his promise of that endorsement even after Hillary won New Hampshire. That is loyalty:
... (A senior Clinton adviser says that, had Kerry offered Hillary his endorsement in late December, she would have announced it immediately; her campaign coveted Kerry's organized support in Iowa and New Hampshire, both of which he won in 2004.) ... And, as Kerry himself realized, the chips were definitely down for Obama after New Hampshire. "The Hillary people, they were convinced that it was over--they'd punctured the balloon and it was done," Kerry says. "They'd won the big one, ... and they were going to win the rest of the states."
Given all this, any politician in Kerry's shoes that night might have been forgiven for telling Obama that he'd had some second thoughts, that (to borrow a phrase) he was for the endorsement before he was against it. But when Obama called, Kerry was ready with his answer. "Barack said, 'Do you still want to go down to South Carolina?'" Kerry recalls. "I said, 'Absolutely, let's go.'"
Wow. That is truly amazing. And it brings us back to the speech that Kerry wrote and delivered last night. Much has been made of his excellent critique of the GOP and John McCain. But I was equally moved by his full throated and personal entreaties of what a great leader Obama is and will be:
So remember, when we choose a commander-in-chief this November, we are electing judgment and character, not years in the Senate or on this Earth. Time and again, Barack Obama has seen farther and listened harder and listened better and thought harder. And time and again, Barack Obama has proven right.
...
How insulting to suggest that those who question the mission question the troops. How pathetic to suggest that those who question a failed policy doubt America itself. How desperate to tell the son of a single mother, who chose community service over money and privilege, that he doesn't put America first. No one --
(Cheers, applause.)
No one can question Barack -- no one can question Barack Obama's patriotism. Like all of us, he was taught what it means to be an American by his family -- his grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line in World War II; his grandfather, who marched in Patton's Army; and his great-uncle, who enlisted in the Army right out of high school at the height of the war. And on a spring day in 1945, that great-uncle helped liberate one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald.
Ladies and gentlemen, Barack Obama's uncle is here with us tonight. Please join me in saluting this American hero, Charlie Payne.
SEN. KERRY: Charlie, your nephew, Barack Obama, will end this politics of distortion and division. He will be a president who seeks not to perfect the lies of swift-boating, but to end them once and for all.
One last note about Kerry's speech in terms of McCain. I think there was a real authenticity to Kerry's watching McCain in horror adopt all the Karl Rove tactics. It started with the VP talks with McCain in '04 being directly leaked to the press by McCain to embarrass Kerry. Then it got worse when the swiftboating started:
...Things went further down hill when McCain, after initially denouncing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads against Kerry as "dishonest" and "dishonorable," refused to let Kerry use his image in rebuttal ads and then went on to vigorously campaign for Bush. "Kerry really believed that Band of Brothers bullshit," says one Democratic strategist. "He thought that he and McCain had come to a soulful understanding of each other that was strong and permanent and meaningful, and it clearly wasn't for McCain."
I have to say that this goes directly to John McCain's character -- this is how he treats his friends? He even admitted to Kerry's face that he had no plans of living up to the values Kerry thought McCain had.
Kerry insists that his disagreements with McCain aren't personal. But he seems personally wounded by the political road McCain has been traveling of late. "I'm not unfriendly to John," Kerry told me in a resigned tone. "I do think he's taken a turn that I don't find in keeping with John McCain, the maverick, independent pre-2004. ... I think he's been catering to interests that have led us astray the last few years." Kerry's brother, Cam, says, "The sort of general public disappointment in McCain"--at least among Democrats who once admired him--"translates on a personal level for John." Kerry recalled a breakfast he and McCain had in early 2005 at the Capitol Hill restaurant La Colline, where the two talked over the presidential campaign. He said McCain told him, "Sometimes you disappoint your friends."
Can you believe he said that to him? That really is a stunning revelation, and I think if you add up all of these factors -- the swiftboating, the devastating effect the Bush administration has had on our country and throughout the world which McCain wants to continue the policies of, plus Kerry's admiration of Obama -- you have the makings of a kind of passion rarely seen in a convention speech. It's about time Kerry put it all together.
Now onward to Obama's historical acceptance speech tonight!