Boston
TONIGHT JOHN KERRY will deliver the most important speech of his 30-year-long political career. And Terry Edmonds wants you to know the senator wrote the speech himself. Edmonds, 54, is the Kerry campaign’s chief speechwriter and a veteran of the Clinton White House. He spoke with reporters on Thursday morning, along with Bob Shrum, Kerry’s chief political consigliere.
“A number of people wrote drafts,” Shrum said. “But Senator Kerry wrote his speech.” Edmonds and Shrum, perhaps the only two Kerry staffers able to read the senator’s scraggly handwriting, said they often took dictation from the Democratic nominee. Then the two went on to lay out what the primetime television audience–as well as the national press corps–can expect from tonight’s address.
Here’s a hint: there won’t be much in the way of details. “This is not a policy-heavy speech,” Edmonds said. And it ought not be “overly long,” he continued. Instead, the candidate will focus on two things: “values,” and biography.
“We want people to get to know him as a human being, the values that have carried him through life, and the fact that he is able to lead this country,” Edmonds said. Shrum agreed: Kerry’s “Going to tell people who he is, what his values are.”
National security will play a part in tonight’s speech. While Shrum and Edmonds believe Kerry has already demonstrated he can be an effective commander in chief–“That threshold has already been crossed,” Shrum said–the campaign also cannot afford to ignore the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The issue is central to the campaign because it is central to the country,” Edmonds said.
There’s another way in which national security will play a part in tonight’s address: Vietnam. Shrum gave a resounding “no” when asked whether the Kerry campaign had overplayed the senator’s war valor a third of a century ago. “It’s part of his life, it’s part of his history, it’s part of who he is,” Shrum said. “The Bush people can talk about that issue if they want,” he continued, alluding to the controversy over President Bush’s National Guard service during the Vietnam War.
The idea is that Kerry’s war heroism in Vietnam inoculates him from charges he’d be soft on national security issues if elected president. Kerry will offer himself up as a veteran eager to protect America in a time of need. It may work. But you shouldn’t expect any bounce in support that Kerry receives from tonight’s speech to last. Certainly Shrum doesn’t. “This race keeps tending to return to equilibrium,” he said. “And I expect it to keep returning to equilibrium.”
Shrum, who is 61, looked exhausted. He told reporters he was losing his voice as he downed cups of coffee while chewing gum. Edmonds, polished and dapper, wore a tight smile as he tried to keep the details of Kerry’s speech to a minimum.
Edmonds said, “I think it’s no secret what the senator’s theme is: ‘Strong at home and respected in the world.'”
A few reporters chuckled. They’d grown tired of the cliché.
Apparently Shrum has too. He turned to his colleague, feigned surprise, his voice choked with sarcasm, and said: “Is that right?”
Matthew Continetti is a reporter at The Weekly Standard.
