TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=91TT2720> <link 92TT0499> <link 90TT2885> <title> Dec. 09, 1991: Is He Ready for the Big Leagues? </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991 Dec. 09, 1991 One Nation, Under God </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> NATION, Page 31 DEMOCRATS Is He Ready for the Big Leagues? </hdr><body> Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey has guts, glory and a Medal of Honor to prove it. Now he must convince voters that he is more than a charming hero. By Jon D. Hull/Lincoln Until he jumped into the presidential race last September, the biggest challenge in Bob Kerrey's life was finding a challenge big enough for Bob Kerrey. This is a man who lost a leg in Vietnam, earning a Medal of Honor, and jogs five miles a day with a prosthesis. He built a successful chain of restaurants and health clubs in Nebraska and then won both the governorship and actress Debra Winger's heart (for a while, at least). He walked away from the statehouse in 1987, explaining, "I need more danger in my life." Now, after only three years in the Senate, Joseph Robert Kerrey, 48, says he is ready for the really big leagues. His restless ambition is not entirely foolhardy. His credentials as a military hero force even Republicans to salute, and his boyish charm gets Nebraskans reminiscing about John F. Kennedy. "Everyone gives him the benefit of the doubt because Americans love heroes," says Republican Dave Karnes, who lost to Kerrey in the 1988 Senate race. "I call him the Cornhusker Camelot." But Nebraska is a very small pond, which explains why the national press still confuses Bob Kerrey with Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, also a Vietnam vet. Although Bob Kerrey has a seasoned campaign staff, he has not hit his stride. Asked during an appearance in Sioux Falls what he would do to stimulate the economy, Kerrey muttered, "I don't know." He stumbled during a political roast in Bedford, N.H., when a C-SPAN microphone caught him telling a sexually explicit joke about lesbians to Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. He has since apologized repeatedly. Kerrey would much rather talk about health care, a topic he mastered even before it became the hottest new weapon in the Democrats' arsenal. Last summer he introduced an 83-page bill calling for universal coverage, including long-term care, to be funded largely by a 5% payroll tax. Kerrey contends that a family earning $40,000 would save $500 a year under his proposal. "Health care is the Pac-Man of our budget," he says. Kerrey's willingness to propose a $234 billion payroll-tax hike is just one indication of a maverick style that is intermittently refreshing and disturbing. "He'll spit into the wind just to see if he can dodge it," says Paul Johnson, who managed Kerrey's Senate campaign. In 1989 Kerrey cast one of only eight votes against the savings and loan bailout. That same year, he initially supported the anti-flag burning constitutional amendment but changed his mind and emerged as one of the first Senators to denounce the popular amendment. He warned of thousands of U.S. casualties in the Persian Gulf and was one of 47 Senators who voted against the war. Though he still stands by his decision, he now admits that his experiences in Vietnam may have colored his judgment. Kerrey takes pride in his readiness to rethink his positions; a less sympathetic view suggests that he is at times too impulsive and unstudied. In his 1982 campaign for Governor, he flip-flopped on the issue of abortion before deciding he was pro-choice. He proposes to shrink the Federal Government, cutting the number of Cabinet positions in half, but his calls for nationalized health care and massive investment in education and public works smack of Big Government. Says Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers: "Kerrey is as hard to get a grip on as quicksilver." But even longtime critics like Chambers admit that Kerrey is the man to beat in any personality contest. Quick with a chuckle and a self-deprecating quip, Kerrey can leave brief acquaintances with the impression that secrets have been shared. At times, his disarming candor verges on glibness. Responding to the charge that his romance with Winger was the only memorable aspect of his governorship, he once said, "There are times when Debra Winger is all I remember of those years." (He says they remain friends.) Before an audience, Kerrey seduces rather than electrifies. Aides complain of his reluctance to go for applause lines. His charm is nonetheless formidable: judging from his movie-star popularity among women in Nebraska, he may be the only presidential contender who could raise money by selling locks of hair. Kerrey may also be the ideal yuppie candidate. As Governor, he earned the title "Rockin' Bob" for his appearances at a blues bar in Lincoln with Winger in tow. A voracious reader, he inscribes his Christmas cards with poetry and can run a philosophical tangent all the way out the door--but he'd just as soon pop open a beer and watch Beetlejuice, one of his favorite movies. Says Bev McDonald, who worked for Kerrey in the Governor's office: "He is so genuine that skeptics might think he's fake." The third of seven children, Kerrey was raised in a middle-class neighborhood of Lincoln, where his father worked as a contractor. "We lived a fairly untouched life," says his sister Jessie Rasmussen, now a Nebraska state senator. At the University of Nebraska, he majored in pharmacology and was elected president of his fraternity and a member of the Honorary Society. Old-fashioned heartland patriotism inspired Kerrey to enlist in the Navy in 1966. The next year, he signed up for the Navy SEALs, the elite corps specializing in sea, air and land operations, and embraced its tough can-do mentality. When two men drowned during rigorous training in San Diego, Kerrey challenged his superiors to allow two days off for mourning. They did. In March 1969, three months after arriving in Vietnam, Kerrey led his seven-man team on a pre-dawn assault against an enemy position on an island in the South China Sea. The Viet Cong fired first, and a grenade shattered Kerrey's right foot. Despite profuse bleeding, he directed a counterattack and successfully evacuated all his men. During the eight months he spent at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, Kerrey underwent more than a dozen operations. He also developed a Zen-like streak, which comes through in such observations as "The most free that we can be is when we are not afraid of losing everything." Fellow patient Lewis Puller still marvels at Kerrey's stoic response to pain and refusal to take narcotics. "He seemed impervious to pain in a way that most of us were not. He'd simply bite the bullet," says Puller. Looking back, Kerrey sees himself as a "weakened and bitter, altogether unpleasant young man." He soon regained his confidence, but the war left him distrustful of authority--which may explain why he is so eager to be the one in charge. He returned home a much more introspective and compassionate man. He frequently visits amputees at Nebraska hospitals; while Governor, he once spent a weekend talking a farmer out of suicide. After dabbling in the antiwar movement, Kerrey teamed up with brother-in-law Dean Rasmussen and opened Grandmother's Skillet restaurant in Omaha in 1973, and now has investments in eight restaurants and three health clubs. He married Beverly Defnall in 1974, but they divorced in 1978. They remain friends, and she appeared on the platform along with their two children, Benjamin, 17, and Lindsey, 15, when he announced his presidential candidacy. Bored with business, he ran for Governor in 1982. "Within a month, voters were reaching out just to touch him," says media consultant Joe Rothstein, who worked on the campaign. Despite the farm crisis, Governor Kerrey managed to turn a state deficit of $24 million into a $50 million surplus, but at the expense of several campaign promises, including a proposed pay raise for state workers. In the Senate, he won key appointments to the agriculture and appropriations committees. Colleagues consider him a serious, if still green, legislator. The candidate's worst enemy may be his own reputation. For a man trained to kill without warning, he seems surprisingly reluctant to throw a knockout punch. When an angry voter asked him whether Reagan and Bush were to blame for the nation's ills, Kerrey simply dodged. "The enemy in this campaign is not George Bush," he told a disappointed audience. "The enemy is pessimism." Hardly a rousing call to battle. Kerrey bridles at the charge that he is running on his hero's image rather than his record. "It's offensive in that it trivializes," he says. "I would never say that I am a charismatic person or an enigmatic or mystical person." But at this early stage in the campaign, substance alone has not distinguished him from the pack. Although his imposing resume makes his bid for the White House seem inevitable, he still must prove that his timing is not premature. </body></article> </text>