TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/120991/1209103.000

Text File | 1992-10-19 | 8.9 KB | 183 lines

                Θ                                                          ╚NATION, Page 31

DEMOCRATS

Is He Ready for the Big Leagues?


Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey has guts, glory and a Medal of Honor
to prove it. Now he must convince voters that he is more than a
charming hero.

By JON D. HULL/LINCOLN


    Until he jumped into the presidential race last September,
the biggest challenge in Bob Kerrey's life was finding a
challenge big enough for Bob Kerrey. This is a man who lost a
leg in Vietnam, earning a Medal of Honor, and jogs five miles a
day with a prosthesis. He built a successful chain of restaurants
and health clubs in Nebraska and then won both the governorship
and actress Debra Winger's heart (for a while, at least). He
walked away from the statehouse in 1987, explaining, "I need more
danger in my life." Now, after only three years in the Senate,
Joseph Robert Kerrey, 48, says he is ready for the really big
leagues.

    His restless ambition is not entirely foolhardy. His
credentials as a military hero force even Republicans to salute,
and his boyish charm gets Nebraskans reminiscing about John F.
Kennedy. "Everyone gives him the benefit of the doubt because
Americans love heroes," says Republican Dave Karnes, who lost
to Kerrey in the 1988 Senate race. "I call him the Cornhusker
Camelot."

    But Nebraska is a very small pond, which explains why the
national press still confuses Bob Kerrey with Senator John Kerry
of Massachusetts, also a Vietnam vet. Although Bob Kerrey has
a seasoned campaign staff, he has not hit his stride. Asked
during an appearance in Sioux Falls what he would do to
stimulate the economy, Kerrey muttered, "I don't know." He
stumbled during a political roast in Bedford, N.H., when a
C-SPAN microphone caught him telling a sexually explicit joke
about lesbians to Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. He has since
apologized repeatedly.

    Kerrey would much rather talk about health care, a topic
he mastered even before it became the hottest new weapon in the
Democrats' arsenal. Last summer he introduced an 83-page bill
calling for universal coverage, including long-term care, to be
funded largely by a 5% payroll tax. Kerrey contends that a
family earning $40,000 would save $500 a year under his
proposal. "Health care is the Pac-Man of our budget," he says.

    Kerrey's willingness to propose a $234 billion payroll-tax
hike is just one indication of a maverick style that is
intermittently refreshing and disturbing. "He'll spit into the
wind just to see if he can dodge it," says Paul Johnson, who
managed Kerrey's Senate campaign. In 1989 Kerrey cast one of
only eight votes against the savings and loan bailout. That same
year, he initially supported the anti-flag burning
constitutional amendment but changed his mind and emerged as one
of the first Senators to denounce the popular amendment. He
warned of thousands of U.S. casualties in the Persian Gulf and
was one of 47 Senators who voted against the war. Though he
still stands by his decision, he now admits that his experiences
in Vietnam may have colored his judgment.

    Kerrey takes pride in his readiness to rethink his
positions; a less sympathetic view suggests that he is at times
too impulsive and unstudied. In his 1982 campaign for Governor,
he flip-flopped on the issue of abortion before deciding he was
pro-choice. He proposes to shrink the Federal Government,
cutting the number of Cabinet positions in half, but his calls
for nationalized health care and massive investment in education
and public works smack of Big Government. Says Nebraska state
senator Ernie Chambers: "Kerrey is as hard to get a grip on as
quicksilver."

    But even longtime critics like Chambers admit that Kerrey
is the man to beat in any personality contest. Quick with a
chuckle and a self-deprecating quip, Kerrey can leave brief
acquaintances with the impression that secrets have been shared.
At times, his disarming candor verges on glibness. Responding
to the charge that his romance with Winger was the only
memorable aspect of his governorship, he once said, "There are
times when Debra Winger is all I remember of those years." (He
says they remain friends.) Before an audience, Kerrey seduces
rather than electrifies. Aides complain of his reluctance to go
for applause lines. His charm is nonetheless formidable: judging
from his movie-star popularity among women in Nebraska, he may
be the only presidential contender who could raise money by
selling locks of hair.

    Kerrey may also be the ideal yuppie candidate. As
Governor, he earned the title "Rockin' Bob" for his appearances
at a blues bar in Lincoln with Winger in tow. A voracious
reader, he inscribes his Christmas cards with poetry and can run
a philosophical tangent all the way out the door -- but he'd
just as soon pop open a beer and watch Beetlejuice, one of his
favorite movies. Says Bev McDonald, who worked for Kerrey in the
Governor's office: "He is so genuine that skeptics might think
he's fake."

    The third of seven children, Kerrey was raised in a
middle-class neighborhood of Lincoln, where his father worked
as a contractor. "We lived a fairly untouched life," says his
sister Jessie Rasmussen, now a Nebraska state senator. At the
University of Nebraska, he majored in pharmacology and was
elected president of his fraternity and a member of the Honorary
Society. Old-fashioned heartland patriotism inspired Kerrey to
enlist in the Navy in 1966. The next year, he signed up for the
Navy SEALs, the elite corps specializing in sea, air and land
operations, and embraced its tough can-do mentality. When two
men drowned during rigorous training in San Diego, Kerrey
challenged his superiors to allow two days off for mourning.
They did.

    In March 1969, three months after arriving in Vietnam,
Kerrey led his seven-man team on a pre-dawn assault against an
enemy position on an island in the South China Sea. The Viet
Cong fired first, and a grenade shattered Kerrey's right foot.
Despite profuse bleeding, he directed a counterattack and
successfully evacuated all his men.

    During the eight months he spent at the Philadelphia Naval
Hospital, Kerrey underwent more than a dozen operations. He also
developed a Zen-like streak, which comes through in such
observations as "The most free that we can be is when we are not
afraid of losing everything." Fellow patient Lewis Puller still
marvels at Kerrey's stoic response to pain and refusal to take
narcotics. "He seemed impervious to pain in a way that most of
us were not. He'd simply bite the bullet," says Puller.

    Looking back, Kerrey sees himself as a "weakened and
bitter, altogether unpleasant young man." He soon regained his
confidence, but the war left him distrustful of authority --
which may explain why he is so eager to be the one in charge.
He returned home a much more introspective and compassionate
man. He frequently visits amputees at Nebraska hospitals; while
Governor, he once spent a weekend talking a farmer out of
suicide.

    After dabbling in the antiwar movement, Kerrey teamed up
with brother-in-law Dean Rasmussen and opened Grandmother's
Skillet restaurant in Omaha in 1973, and now has investments in
eight restaurants and three health clubs. He married Beverly
Defnall in 1974, but they divorced in 1978. They remain friends,
and she appeared on the platform along with their two children,
Benjamin, 17, and Lindsey, 15, when he announced his
presidential candidacy.

    Bored with business, he ran for Governor in 1982. "Within
a month, voters were reaching out just to touch him," says
media consultant Joe Rothstein, who worked on the campaign.
Despite the farm crisis, Governor Kerrey managed to turn a state
deficit of $24 million into a $50 million surplus, but at the
expense of several campaign promises, including a proposed pay
raise for state workers. In the Senate, he won key appointments
to the agriculture and appropriations committees. Colleagues
consider him a serious, if still green, legislator.

    The candidate's worst enemy may be his own reputation. For
a man trained to kill without warning, he seems surprisingly
reluctant to throw a knockout punch. When an angry voter asked
him whether Reagan and Bush were to blame for the nation's ills,
Kerrey simply dodged. "The enemy in this campaign is not George
Bush," he told a disappointed audience. "The enemy is
pessimism." Hardly a rousing call to battle.

    Kerrey bridles at the charge that he is running on his
hero's image rather than his record. "It's offensive in that it
trivializes," he says. "I would never say that I am a charismatic
person or an enigmatic or mystical person." But at this early
stage in the campaign, substance alone has not distinguished him
from the pack. Although his imposing resume makes his bid for the
White House seem inevitable, he still must prove that his timing
is not premature.