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Mary Sue's Café and Kerry supporters
Date: Friday, Jan. 9, 2004
Location: Davenport, Iowa
Place: Kerry rally
It is very cold here, but I'm too excited to be cold.
My first stop of the day is at Mary Sue's Café, where I meet supporters of John Kerry. Many are veterans who admire the senator's record as a Vietnam veteran and a Vietnam critic. Dan Broghammer tells me, "I'd walk through fire for that guy." And Mr. Broghammer knows something about walking through fire. He came home from Vietnam with a Purple Heart.
Kerry talks for an hour around a table with seven carefully chosen Iowa "workers." They talk about their genuine problems, but their comments and questions have a pre-planned and artificial quality. For his part, Kerry is appropriately serious, but too solemn. He starts to explain his "Workers' Bill of Rights," and all I can think is, "Please, don't tell us about all 10 parts." He stops after three.
After Kerry and the press corps leave Mary Sue's, I talk more with Kerry supporters. I notice that they speak of their candidate with reverence. I compare them to Howard Dean's people. Among the governor's followers, Dean inspires excitement. Among the senator's followers, Kerry inspires admiration. The two rivals' relationships with their supporters - like their personalities - have little in common.
Now it's off to Altoona, Iowa, to drop in on the Dennis Kucinich campaign.
Duke senior Justin Walker, a "political junkie" from Louisville, Ky., is on the Democratic Party campaign trail as part of an independent study project. He is filing periodic dispatches for the Duke Web site.
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