I'm no fan of TNR, but at least some of this rings true to me. Also, anyone with a login at TNR, please comment on why Kerry is anti-Establishment (can anyone spell B-C-C-I?):
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=4d59656c-ac34-4e87-9fe9-9ae37b2e2653&p=1Two days after the New Hampshire primary, John Kerry climbed onto a dais in Charleston, South Carolina, and endorsed Barack Obama. "We need ... leaders who look out at America and see not an electorate to be sliced and diced and pitted against each other, but citizens who want to do great things together," Kerry said. At first, it sounded like a shot at George Bush and Karl Rove. But, the longer he went on, the more Kerry seemed to have another polarizing duo in mind--Bill and Hillary Clinton. "Sometimes the hardest thing for the established political world to do is make a clean break with the past," Kerry added.
...
Though Hillary kept her head down when she arrived in the Senate--avoiding glitzy TV appearances and lingering at committee hearings until the bitter end-- she never really improved this relationship. "There was always a sense that Hillary was in the Senate to further Hillary's goals," recalls another former Daschle staffer, noting how rarely Clinton pitched in on team efforts. One reason for this: She didn't need the press attention that draws novice senators to thorny-but-necessary tasks.
Obama would take the opposite tack as a freshman. When Democrats began agitating for lobbying reform in 2006, it was Obama who agreed to be their lead negotiator with Republicans. In a chamber as sensitive to the flow of cash as the Senate, stepping between lobbyists and your colleagues is a bit like cutting off your frat brothers when they've had too much to drink: Everyone concedes it must be done, but nobody is lining up to do it. But Obama co-authored several of the provisions, like restrictions on lobbyist-funded meals, that eventually became law. "Could you go to Hillary? Sure," said a Senate aide when I asked why Clinton wasn't enlisted. "But we would probably think that, if she wants to get involved in something, she's going to get involved in something (herself)."
...
But it's Kerry who provides the most vivid example of elite Washington's flight to Obama. Prior to his presidential campaign, Kerry had long thought of himself as an anti-establishment figure. "Late in 2002, early '03, he was the cool guy, married to Teresa Heinz, who did environmental stuff and had protested the (Vietnam) war," says Andrei Cherny, a former Kerry aide. Many of his early supporters, particularly top fund-raisers, had also stood apart from the Clinton establishment. Some, like Silicon Valley super-lawyer John Roos, had backed Bill Bradley. Others, like venture capitalist Mark Gorenberg, had only begun fund-raising actively toward the end of the Clinton era.
After he clinched the nomination, Kerry was keen to enlist the former president's help. (He believed Al Gore had made a mistake by distancing himself from Clinton in 2000.) But the decision created headaches. "There was never a sense that were less than one hundred percent committed to winning," says one longtime Kerry friend. "But there was a sense that, at key moments, their legacy or their role in the party was paramount." Not long after the GOP convention, for example, Kerry talked strategy with a bedridden Clinton. Kerry aides fumed when, a day and a half later, the ostensibly private conversation made the front page of The New York Times, bestowing a Yoda-like glow on Clinton while painting Kerry as a cipher.
For many in Kerry's orbit, the final straw came in 2006, after the senator mangled a joke about lousy students getting "stuck in Iraq." (Kerry had intended to needle Bush for "getting us stuck in a war in Iraq.") The fallout helped dash Kerry's hopes of another White House run. In the minds of his supporters, that's precisely what Hillary Clinton intended when she piled on two days later, calling the comment "inappropriate." "A lot of us were rip-shit pissed off at Hillary for putting her boot on his neck," says one dedicated fund-raiser. Once Kerry officially bowed out, several of his most loyal money men decamped for team Obama.
None of which is to say Obama's elite support is entirely an anti-Clinton phenomenon. According to the longtime friend, Kerry feels like he and Obama are "programmed from the same foreign policy DNA." Daschle aides say their former boss was taken with Obama's conciliatory style and his red-state appeal, both of which the former senator prided himself on. And just about every former Kerry and Daschle aide I spoke to used the word "movement" to describe Obama's allure.
By the way, I included two paragraphs non-Kerry related about how they never could go to Hillary to do difficult tasks, but Obama was delighted to help out. That unto itself says something, and it's what many of us here have discussed for the past couple of years.
Anyway, there is a dumb comment saying how ridiculous it is that Kerry thinks he's anti-Establishment. I don't have a login but someone who does needs to respond to that foolishness.
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