Kerry

 https://time.com/archive/6739072/inside-the-mind-of-john-kerry/

He is studious, thorough and engaged when making policy decisions. He is independent to the point of being something of a loner.

Kerry is a very proper Bostonian. His apparent aloofness is actually an antique form of New England propriety. ... Part of [his] ethos ... is his formal, hortatory Sunday-sermon speaking style. A strong sense of honor comes with the territory.

Military honor certainly accounts for some of Kerry’s overactive sense of propriety, though not all of it. “The reticence, or whatever, came from both our parents but from my mother most of all,” Kerry’s younger brother Cameron told me a few weeks ago. “She was vehement about civic duty and personal correctness. Once, when I started talking about winning a ski race, she said to me, ‘Shrink it down’–meaning my head. That was one of her expressions. ... He never rebelled against what Mom taught us.” ... Kerry didn’t rebel all that much against his father either. Richard Kerry was a career foreign-service officer who saw public service as a priestly calling. He was vehement in his beliefs, a foreign policy realist who disliked U.S. attempts to remake the world (and disagreed with his son’s decision to go to Vietnam). Family discussions around the dinner table were dead serious and high-minded; irony doesn’t seem to be a Kerry family specialty.

“It is sort of like dealing with Averell Harriman or one of the wise men,” says former Kerry speechwriter Andrei Cherny, speaking of the Brahmins who dominated U.S. foreign policy after World War II. “On policy issues, he will grill his advisers in a way that seems a throwback: What will this mean for America 10 years down the road? How will it affect the global economy? It made me feel good to be working for someone that serious.”

His mother’s civic propriety and his father’s diplomatic propriety are a crushingly noble legacy. They haunt his every move. ... He starts a campaign trying to do the right thing, but successful politics requires all sorts of creative roguery. His sense of civic propriety limits his ability to act ruthlessly (firing his campaign manager, for example) or flamboyantly (giving an entertaining, personal, red-meat stump speech). Kerry’s sense of policy propriety renders his attempts at political expediency–the promises and compromises necessary to woo constituencies–tortured and unconvincing. He writhes about, descends into rhetorical abstractions, spends too much time thinking about what he is doing wrong and comes across as distanced, distracted, aloof. A perfect phony.

The problem may have been that the ghost of that old idealism-averse Richard Kerry was sitting on his shoulder, whispering tsk-tsk-tsk. Before making up his mind, Kerry had done his usual high-minded wise-man process. He asked his staff for detailed information, grilled them on it, consulted with a legion of foreign policy Pooh-Bahs–almost always keeping his own counsel, never tipping his hand. Jonathan Winer, a former Kerry staff member, says the policy process usually involves a political component: “He always asks, ‘Who else likes it?’ ‘Who doesn’t?’ ‘Why don’t they?’ ‘Why haven’t we addressed that argument?’ And when all those questions are answered, he goes off and makes his decision.”

“John’s judgment when it comes to the substance of policy is excellent,” Biden told me. “We’re usually in agreement. We don’t even have to talk about it much. The truth is, he usually spends more time talking about the politics of a vote–at least he does with me–and that was certainly the case on the $87 billion. That told me this: John doesn’t have as much confidence in his political judgment as he does in his policy decisions.”

It is a surpassing American oddity that a proper Bostonian who seems so profoundly uncomfortable with the rude ceremonies of the public square can transform himself into a sleek political warrior, eager for the havoc of pitched battle.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/defining-john-kerry/tnamp/

Kerry: "Labels are too simple, particularly if you try to be thoughtful."

Kerry quotes French writer André Gide: "Don't try to understand me too quickly." The line reflects a passion of his: not fitting into a box. Kerry can switch from crusading, reformist liberal to New Democrat and back again.

Kerry is a sharp-minded fellow who speaks in full sentences and paragraphs. He has good hair and is tall. He could play himself in a movie–though his long, sad-dog face has developed deep vertical lines. He has more charisma than the average senator, but not much charm. He has never been accused of being a politician who easily bonds with others. He doesn't do small talk. For much of his career, he was not into the grunt work of politicking.

There's Kerry the dispassionate policy advocate who can appear more intrigued with issues than with making contact. His politics bounce between the two. He assails the flow of private money into campaigns; he sides with portions of the corporate political agenda. He hews to the liberal line on universal healthcare and increasing wages, but he has displayed more interest in the subject of international crime–hardly an unimportant topic, but one that does not stir many souls. Does that indicate he's a shrewd calculator looking to establish a unique political niche, or a detached Democrat who is sometimes unengaged by his party's traditional fights, or an intellectually curious person who pays attention to serious stuff ignored by others? He's long been rapped for being overly ambitious.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5453362

He is the politician who speaks of core principles yet is known for his cautious pragmatism.

“Have you had a beer with me yet?” Kerry protested when a local reporter once asked about his reputation for aloofness. “I like to have fun as much as the next person, and go out and hack around and have a good time.” What would someone learn about him if they did go out for that beer, he is asked later. “You just have to do it,” he insists. “You just have to have fun, let your hair down, relax, laugh, kick some jokes around, have a good time — talk about something other than this.” Kerry’s daughter Alex, 30, says her father sometimes can get so focused that it “precludes having a lackadaisical moment.” But she says he can be witty and silly, even goofy, in more relaxed settings. He’s quick with a sarcastic jibe and skilled at mimicking accents, she says, but careful not to do so when someone might take offense. His younger daughter, Vanessa, 27, offers four words to sum up her father: dedicated, curious, intelligent, playful. “I like playful above all,” Kerry says, when offered his daughter’s list.

“I am very well aware that when God made me, one of the debits he gave was a sort of over-level of intensity, maybe an over-level of earnestness,” he said. “I don’t sort of wear every part of me on my sleeve as easily as some people do, and I know that. On the other hand, what I do know about myself is that when you have a fight, I am a good person to be in a foxhole with.”

Cameron Kerry says he saw the “deeply emotional, sentimental side” of his brother as John helped care for their parents in their dying days. ... “Other people were there to care for them, but he jumped into it and helped care very tenderly for them,” Cameron Kerry recalls.

“John has always been able to do an override on the emotions,” Muller said, “to be pragmatic and to be effective.” ... As a politician, says Muller, “He does have those passionate values and concerns, but at the same time he’s a tactician.” 

Kerry is known for his energy and curiosity — he’s joked that maybe his mother gave him a “permanent dose of hyperactivity.”

Kerry also has a hunger for sport — be it hockey, skiing, biking, “silly things like roofball,” windsurfing or, most recently, kiteboarding. His idea of relaxation usually involves producing adrenaline. “These board sports have taken over his life,” sighs Alex Kerry. Says her father, “I call it hacking around. ... It’s an important part of just sort of being free.” Not one to sit still, Kerry tosses around a football on the airport tarmac during campaign stops, or commandeers a motorcycle from one of the police officers on duty. During a 1991 visit to Israel, the senator, who trained as a pilot in his college days, persuaded an Israeli colonel to take him up in an Air Force jet and to let him take the controls and do “a little aerobatics.” “So I went up to 12,000 feet and proceeded to go in and do a loop,” Kerry recounted recently. Not standard fare for a congressional fact-finding tour.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-kerry-teen-outcast/

https://time.com/archive/6738924/the-making-of-john-kerry/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2004/kerry/youth.html

https://albertmohler.com/2004/07/28/who-is-senator-john-kerry-its-time-to-take-a-closer-look/

https://www.cjr.org/politics/kerry_beauty_and_the_beast.php

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