Kerry on a Mission for Momentum in Iowa

It was well below freezing outside the Center for Active Seniors, but Sen. John F. Kerry was not ready to step in from the cold. The 100 or so voters waiting inside to hear the presidential candidate speak would have to wait a little longer because here, in the frigid entryway, stood the immediate object of his desire.

Kerry leaned close to Susan Pamperin -- Democratic county chairwoman, union officer and woman of influence in southeastern Iowa -- and made his pitch. The Massachusetts senator’s first words escaped into the night, but his closing entreaty could not be missed. “Come on. I want you with me,” Kerry said. “I need you with me.”

“I can tell,” Pamperin said, laughing nervously. Then the candidate, his aides, a buddy from Vietnam and several local luminaries ducked through the door.

Just a month from the Jan. 19 Iowa caucuses, the onetime favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination is urging voters here to give him another look. In his words, he is “fighting for every vote” and feeling more like himself than he has in some time.

Iowa might once have seemed a mere run-up to the New Hampshire primary, where his Boston roots appeared to give him a sure New England home-court advantage. But he’s trailing in both states to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and battling to keep his presidential dreams alive.

The senator’s aides concede he needs momentum from Iowa, halfway across the country, to energize his campaign. An unexpectedly close finish in Iowa behind front-runners Dean and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri might give him the oomph he needs, but second would be much better, his camp agrees.

Emphasizing the campaign’s sense of urgency, Kerry this week took out an $850,000 personal loan and announced he would mortgage his Boston home to bring in more money. On Monday, he will begin a 24-hour bus tour through 11 Iowa cities.

The candidate once criticized as too patrician, too distant from voters and too long-winded -- the press corps said his stump speech was so windy it made their hair blow -- was nowhere to be found in a four-day swing through Iowa this week.

Instead, Kerry took time to throw his arm around grandmothers, to sign autographs for teenagers and, mostly, to answer questions -- to the point that a few audiences nearly ran out of things to ask.

When an aide tried to hurry him along after more than an hour of Q & A at the Davenport gathering, Kerry responded: “I know. I know. But I want to answer these people’s questions, because I want them to vote for me.” The crowd laughed and applauded.

At some stops, his supporters admit they have become dispirited by all the news of a surging Dean -- his endorsement by former Vice President Al Gore and a recent New Hampshire poll that showed Dean at 46%, far outstripping Kerry’s 17%. But Kerry bucks them up. “Don’t worry about it,” he told one woman at a Cedar Rapids hospital. “We are going to keep going.”

For Kerry, that means heaping derision on President Bush, with a smaller helping of distaste for Dean. As a centerpiece of his stump speech, he slams Bush for “playing dress up” and taking to the deck of an aircraft carrier on May 1 to say that major combat in Iraq was over.

Kerry tells audiences that the president only credibly invokes the words “mission accomplished” in regard to a select few -- wealthy people receiving his tax cuts, lobbyists bargaining for drug companies, polluters not forced to clean the air and water and investors padding their pocketbooks. For everyone else, Kerry says, “It’s not only not mission accomplished, it’s mission not even properly attempted. It’s mission abandoned.”

That line received warm applause in Iowa this week, as did the Navy veteran’s challenge to the president on the issue of foreign affairs: “I know something about aircraft carriers for real. If he wants to make national security the principal issue of this campaign, I’ve got three words for him that I know he understands: Bring . . . it . . . on!”

The capture of Saddam Hussein forced Kerry to retool some of his remarks. Gone was the barb at Bush for not being able to find the Iraqi dictator. His attacks on Dean, in contrast, became reinvigorated. Kerry said the former governor’s unwillingness to acknowledge that America was safer without Saddam proved he did not know enough to conduct America’s foreign policy.

He also said some of Dean’s comments indicated he would be too reliant on the blessing of the United Nations to assert U.S. interests -- a stance Kerry dubbed a “Simon Says foreign policy, where America only moves if others move first.”

Dean has rejected such assertions, saying he would deploy American forces overseas unilaterally if necessary to protect citizens and in some other instances.

Kerry acknowledges that his approach on the campaign trail has changed. A little more than a month ago, he dumped his campaign manager and two other top aides quit. Since then, he’s been urged to loosen up and talk more like a leader.

“I was wrestling with some things and I knew I had to make some changes,” Kerry said Sunday night, after the last of five stops. “I did, and now I am feeling like I can be much more myself and say what I think.”

Those who have observed Kerry for months say he has become better at addressing voters in everyday language and dropping a penchant for Senate-speak.

At a union hall in Cedar Rapids, for example, he sought common ground with firefighters, recalling how difficult his fire-suppression training was in the Navy. He identified a fellow Boston Red Sox fan by his cap and asked about a recent trade rumor. When he learned Josephine Jones of Davenport had just turned 70, he immediately broke into a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” with some of the audience joining in. Janet Wagner, who saw Kerry speak in Cedar Rapids, explained that she supports Kerry but isn’t surprised when some people don’t.

“He is one of those people who just doesn’t come across as well on TV,” Wagner said. “You don’t feel the warmth that you do in person. Some people say he’s aloof, but he’s just not.”

One night on his campaign bus, Kerry pulled out a guitar and plucked out a version of the theme from the “Godfather.” When glowing holiday lights and reindeer on a farmhouse broke the inky darkness, he called across the bus: “Hey, everybody, look at this! Look at this!”

At every stop, fellow veterans greeted Kerry, including two who served on the Navy swift boat he commanded in Vietnam.

Johnny A. Talbot waited until the end of a meeting at the Get to Gather Room on the main square in Bloomfield before the crowd thinned enough for him to approach Kerry. “I was a carrier pilot in the Battle of Midway,” the 84-year-old World War II vet told the senator. “I had to ditch. Spent six days in the water.”

Kerry lingered for a few minutes, as the old man talked. “Wow. I salute you,” Kerry said, taking him by the arm. “I really do.”

Talbot said he would think of voting for Kerry. “He has a little charisma,” Talbot said.

Kerry’s more than two-hour visit at the Davenport seniors center paid off. Tom Kelly, 61, rose to say he had never attended a political caucus but planned to show up for Kerry Jan. 19. Then Pat Schilling, a registered Republican for 30 years, said she was ready to shift her registration to caucus for Kerry.

Buoyed, Kerry spotted one more undecided. He stopped Pamperin against the wall, as an aide tried to block a reporter from hearing. “He has no experience in the foreign policy arena,” Kerry pleaded in hushed tones. “I really want you with me.”

That set the county chairwoman blushing again. “You won’t be disappointed with me,” Pamperin finally offered. “Just let me say that.”

With that, Kerry turned on his heel and, stopping for one more snapshot with supporters, stepped out into the cold.