TN: Kerry has longtime supporters here

[Feanorcurufinwe]

No one knows for sure when or if presidential candidate John Kerry will visit Memphis, but a solid core of local supporters with roots in his past hopes he'll maintain the momentum of his Tuesday night victory in New Hampshire.

<snip>

Other Memphis Kerry supporters include a distant cousin, a co-founder with Kerry of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1969, and a fellow Yale University classmate. Kerry Fulmer, a Memphis social worker whose mother is a first cousin of the candidate, is the campaign's communications coordinator in Memphis and has been working steadily on his behalf since July.

<snip>

Kelly, a real estate management businessman who owns the Pat O'Brien's restaurant on Beale Street, said he has long considered himself a Republican but that he now supports his old friend Kerry. "I don't want to leave the legacy of huge national debts to my grandchildren and child,'' he said of his change of heart.

Kelly, recently disabled through his long-ago exposure to Agent Orange, was active in anti-war politics in New York when Kerry participated in the same cause in Boston in 1969. They teamed up to form Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and Kelly later helped in Kerry's first, unsuccessful run for Congress in Massachusetts in 1972.

<snip>

Shelby County Democratic vice chairman David Cocke met Kerry at the Yale Political Union in the mid-'60s, where Cocke was a year behind the activist future senator. Cocke said he sees Kerry from time to time, but doesn't pretend to be a close friend. He's helping in the campaign because he says his old friend has a solid stand on issues of real concern that works just as well in Memphis as it does in Chicago or on Wall Street.

http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/local_news/article/0,1426,MCA_437_2612352,00.html

[JohnKleeb]

1. Very cool

Thanks this sounds interesting.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. Kerry campaign opens Knox office

Knoxville-area teacher Jim Karney recalled his favorite John Kerry moment from more than 30 years ago like it occurred last week. The two Vietnam War veterans were in Washington in the spring of 1971 to stage what Karney described as a "teach-in" leading up to Kerry's antiwar address before Congress. The vets had lost a court battle to continue camping on government grounds around the capital when Kerry emerged from the crowd and gave a stirring speech that galvanized the weary protesters.

"I'll be damned if I can't sleep on the ground I fought for," Karney recalled Kerry saying.

Fresh off Kerry's win in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night, Karney joined about 50 other Kerry supporters Wednesday at the West Knoxville office of a local lawyer that will be used as Kerry's campaign headquarters.

<snip>

The Tennessee state director for the Kerry campaign, Stephen Lindsey, said that dozens of volunteers will be sweeping across Knoxville and the state using direct mailers, phone calls, yard signs and old-fashioned word-of-mouth politicking to promote the Massachusetts senator.
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/politics/article/0,1406,KNS_356_2612752,00.html

Tennessee is Kerry country?

[JI7]

3. Harold Ford Jr

one of kerry's earliest and biggest supporters is congressman from tennessee.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

4. Yeah, he was

in one of the <snips>. lol