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Kerry for president: a supporter's lament

Senator John Kerry is smart, good-looking, rich and patrician. But with the latest polls showing George W. Bush emerging with a double-digit lead from the Republican National Convention, Senator Kerry's chances of replacing him in the White House suddenly seem tenuous.

In fact, even when the polls showed a tight race, most experts, including those around Senator Kerry, seemed to believe that Mr Bush would win. Among the reasons commonly given, the biggest have to do with the kind of person Senator Kerry is.

The first argument is that Americans rally to a war president and, for better or worse, the United States is at war. Sensible people believe that Osama bin Laden, who is no fool, must surely prefer Mr Bush - on the sound Leninist precept of 'the worse the better' - and could hand him a second term with a large attack in October.

The second argument is that Mr Bush is more keyed in to middle America, where the votes are. In the end, when people go into the counting house, they vote for whom they feel most comfortable. Mr Bush's policies have deeply divided the country's elite, but the 'great unwashed' in pivotal states no doubt in their hearts feel more at home with him.

The third factor is the sense of unease with Senator Kerry himself. There are several dimensions to this. For a decade, I knew him and his first wife fairly well, living in the same upper-class suburb of Boston, taking our children to the same private schools. Although I shall vote for him, it will be with misgivings.

Politicians are opportunistic by trade, but Senator Kerry is that by temperament. Our Irish maids would not work when he came to the house, for they felt he had pandered excessively to the black voters, who in their view had destroyed their communities. While he was our guest, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, then chief of the US navy, refused even to shake hands with Senator Kerry, later explaining that his behaviour in Vietnam was so execrable. Everyone seems to have a complaint about Senator Kerry's excess of opportunism.

The first Republican salvo struck Senator Kerry at his supposed strongest - his fighting record. The group which formed to attack his Vietnam record at the very least has prevented his campaign from riding on his 'take-charge' image.

And I suspect that a second salvo is about to be launched. Brace yourself for innuendo backed with testimonials that Senator Kerry has been worse than just a bad boy while serving in high places.

Senator Kerry has been riding so high more out of disquiet with Mr Bush than from any enthusiasm for him. I recall running into him in Washington when I was serving in the Reagan administration. We shook hands and then he said warmly, 'let's have lunch', while looking over my shoulder for anyone more important.

If he becomes president, who will he be seeking out over other people's shoulders? That is the quandary most people find themselves in as they contemplate making him the most powerful man in the world.

Scott Thompson is a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts

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