The Massachusetts scene - Sen. John Kerry versus Gov. William Weld election race - On The Right - Column

National Review, Nov 25, 1996 by William F. Buckley, Jr.

In Massachusetts, the race between the incumbent senator, John Kerry, and his Republican challenger, Governor William Weld, has caught national attention. This is in part because the contenders are tied in the polls, in part because they are eye-catching. John Kerry is a blueblood who went to St. Paul's School and then Yale, then Vietnam, where he was wounded and honored; from there to the peace movement and, in due course, his Senate seat.

William Weld attended Middlesex Preparatory School, where he did dazzlingly well on apparently minimal exertion. His headmaster was known to doubt any possibility that the high-living young man would conquer Harvard, where memories of him are of the roisterer who always gave himself and his companions a good time. Yet exactly that happened, he conquered Harvard as a student whose major study was Latin, in which he remains fluent, as also in several other languages. His well-kept secret was that immediately after supper he would disappear into the library and read for five hours, beginning his night life only after his studies, unobserved by his classmates, were done.

A sharp and learned observer of the political scene in Massachusetts puts great stress on the long spinal column of the Weld clan, which reaches back to the seventeenth century. The Weld family is manifestly successful in making money, generation after generation. William Weld long since earned a reputation for favoring reduced taxes, in part to clean up after Governor Dukakis, in part because low taxes are a good idea. He is a man who mixes easily, is relaxed, self-confident, gregarious, but not, in the opinion of some, genuinely comfortable with the lower orders. He is, by their reckoning, a patrician who, thumbing down the Decalogue, bumps into, Thou shalt look after those in need, and appear to be enjoying this, as also their company. He has been compared with Nelson Rockefeller, everybody's protective older brother, who however was never truly relaxed except in the company of his social equals.

The exchanges between Kerry and Weld were for a while remarkable in the civilities expressed. The entire arrangement was as if superintended by an Ivy League Political Competition committee, specifying holds barred, money spent, manners exhibited. They agreed on what would be spent in their campaigns, and agreed to debate frequently. What has happened in the last little while is the ignoring of the Ivy League coach as the two candidates yield to biological impulses. They both very much want to win, and the hell with decorum.

Money is no problem. John Kerry's family was wealthy to begin with, and then he married the widow of John (57 Varieties) Heinz. The governor is a multi-millionaire, but contends that he has spent only two thousand dollars out of his own pocket (one wonders, on what were these dollars spent? A bigger model of the Mayflower?). He charges that Kerry has loosed an extra one million dollars in his campaign, violating their covenant. And then he springs the news that Mr. Kerry's dwelling in Washington was paid for by lobbyists, as also the apartment in New York to which he had access whenever he traveled there.

Boston hangs on in suspense over what Mr. Kerry will come in with as a countercharge, but what is it that would truly shock the Boston Establishment? It is very self-indulgent, paying 21 city employees for every thousand residents, the average among cities Boston's size being 14. Pittsburgh has 13, Columbus, Ohio 12, Indianapolis 7. An electorate that will send any Kennedy with two eyes to Washington is not easily scandalized. John Kerry is a Catholic, divorced and remarried. He voted with Clinton to authorize partial-birth abortions. Governor Weld is boisterously PC on abortion and gay rights. There is a third candidate, Susan Gallagher, who opposes abortion, but she seems destined to slip by virtually unnoticed. Well, these paradoxes are not rare, as Junior Phi Bete Weld certainly knows. There were an estimated fifty thousand prostitutes in Rome in the Middle Ages.

Is the outcome of the Massachusetts election something that concerns the nation? Beyond the one vote, plus or minus, in the Senate when it is organized in January? If Weld beats Kerry decisively, he will be a contender for the presidential nomination in the year 2000. If Kerry wins, he will be a dominant Democratic figure in Washington, though he may have to cough up for his own lodgings.