Abstract

WHAT'S RIGHT WITH KERRY

The author argues that, during his Senate career, U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry has demonstrated a willingness to confront hard issues, to challenge power, to pursue values rather than political advantage, to take risks for the public interest. In early 1986 Kerry's office was contacted by a Vietnam vet who alleged that the support network for the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras was linked to drug traffickers. In 1989 he released a report that slammed the Reagan Administration for neglecting or undermining antidrug efforts in order to pursue other foreign policy objectives. After the contra investigation, Kerry next turned to a far more sensitive target: a bank connected to a prominent Democratic Party fundraiser. During their investigation of Noriega, Kerry's staff discovered that the Bank of Credit and Commerce International had facilitated Noriega's drug trafficking and money laundering. In the fall of 1992 Kerry released a report on the BCCI affair. The report was, in a sense, an indictment of Washington cronyism. Kerry voted against the Defense of Marriage Act. He was one of only fourteen senators to oppose the measure. He refused to pretend that the bill was not a wedge-issue trap devised by conservative Republicans. The following year, a re-elected Kerry was in another lonely position as one of only five original sponsors of the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act, to provide for full public financing of Congressional elections: The measure would remove practically all special-interest money from House and Senate campaigns.