http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-07-25-mass-liberal_x.htm

Posted 7/25/2004 4:49 PM

Does 'Massachusetts liberal' label still matter?

As a Bay State senator with a generally liberal voting record prepares to be nominated for the presidency — and in Boston, no less — Republicans are gleefully trying to pin him with the label that helped erase Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis' double-digit lead in the 1988 race and sink his hopes of moving into the White House.

John Kerry is countering with an emphasis on his military service in Vietnam and a focus at this week's convention on Massachusetts' proud history as a birthplace of American democracy. His strategists argue that voters aren't interested in simplistic slogans, anyway.

But even some Democrats worry that the "Taxachusetts" tag still holds some sway among voters who view the state as the home of Harvard Yard eggheads and left-wingers. The headlines about Massachusetts this year, after all, are not about Paul Revere's ride but about the landmark decision by the state's high court that same-sex couples had a right to marry.

The reality is that Massachusetts no longer has a notoriously heavy tax burden. Its legislators, Democrats included, are struggling with the gay-marriage ruling in a state where half the residents are Catholic. It has had Republican governors for more than a decade.

"It's not real," Kerry told USA TODAY when asked about the "Massachusetts liberal" tag. "That stuff is just old hokey that just doesn't stand up. People know it's a lot of malarkey."

Yet there's something about Massachusetts that "magnifies" the word "liberal," Republican pollster David Winston says. As speaker of the House, Boston's Tip O'Neill led the liberal resistance to President Reagan. Sen. Edward Kennedy, patriarch of the nation's leading liberal political dynasty, will deliver the featured convention address on Tuesday.

Will branding Kerry a "Massachusetts liberal" work? Republicans have to hope so, with President Bush's approval ratings below 50% and half of Americans saying the Iraq war was a mistake.

Sixteen years ago, "Massachusetts liberal" served as shorthand for a candidate Republicans portrayed as insufficiently patriotic, soft on crime, weak on defense and a fan of high taxes.

Jane Elmes-Crahall, a professor at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., who studies political rhetoric, calls the term a marketing tool for Republicans in the South and in rural America, including parts of swing states such as Wisconsin and Iowa.

"It still signals the antithesis of their social and economic values," she says.

"It obviously rings a bell" among Republicans, former Democratic national chairman Don Fowler says. "And with some few people in the middle, the persuadables, it could have an impact" unless the Kerry campaign fights back.

Kerry and his team are fighting back, evidence they want to be sure the label doesn't stick.

Kerry chose a running mate in North Carolina Sen. John Edwards who has rural, Southern, blue-collar roots. Both talk often about their personal values.

Kerry stresses his links to other states. The first stop on last year's announcement tour was in South Carolina, site of an important primary. He announced his pick of Edwards in Pittsburgh, where his wife owns an estate. On Friday, he began a cross-country trip to the convention in Aurora, Colo., his birthplace — though he lived there for only four months before his family returned to Massachusetts.

And he never mentions Dukakis, who played a role in Kerry's entry in politics. In his first elective office, Kerry served as Dukakis' lieutenant governor. At the moment, Dukakis doesn't have a speaking role at the convention. "He was a terrific lieutenant governor," Dukakis, now 70, recalled in an interview with The Dallas Morning Newslast week. His better-late-than-never advice to Kerry: "If the other guy's going to come at you with an attack campaign, you have to be ready for it."

Back to the Beatles

The last time an avowedly liberal candidate won the White House, the Beatles were a new sensation and the United States was considering whether to send more military advisers to Vietnam. The winner was Lyndon Johnson, the year 1964. The only Democrats to win the presidency since then, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, were centrist Southern governors.

The list of liberals who have lost since then includes Dukakis, South Dakota Sen. George McGovern in 1972 and former vice president Walter Mondale in 1984. Mondale was nominated at a convention in ultra-liberal San Francisco; in his acceptance speech he promised to raise taxes. He lost 49 states, carrying only his home state of Minnesota. McGovern won only one state, too: Massachusetts.

Even the label of liberal has fallen on hard times. Many now prefer "progressive." In a USA TODAY poll last week, 20% of voters called themselves "liberal;" 46% described Kerry that way.

Bush routinely uses the word to pump up GOP crowds. "Sen. Kerry is rated as the most liberal member of the United States Senate, and he chose a fellow lawyer who is the fourth most liberal member of the United States Senate," he says, then cracks: "Back in Massachusetts, that's what they call balancing the ticket."

Kerry's backers argue he is not the reflexive liberal that Republicans portray. Bush is alluding to a National Journal rating that was calculated on Kerry's 2003 votes on social issues. He was not rated on foreign-policy or economic votes because he was not present for most. In a comparison of lifetime liberal ratings of senators now serving, Kerry ranked 11th.

Kerry is a classic liberal on abortion rights (supports), the death penalty (opposes except for terrorists) and the environment ("as green as they come," as Rolling Stone put it). He is against a constitutional ban on flag-burning. He voted against the 1991 Gulf War.

But he has taken some detours from liberal orthodoxy. He helped write the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law to restrain federal spending, proposed legislation to end teacher tenure and raised questions about affirmative action, though he hasn't focused on those issues during this campaign.

From the convention podium, his former Navy crewmates will testify to his toughness. His wife and two daughters will portray him as a devoted father and family man. His biographical video will talk of his years as a prosecutor.

Still, Republicans scoff at Kerry's claim to reflect American values and dismisses the convention as a scam. Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager, calls it an effort to "take a liberal duckling and make it a centrist swan." The campaign has started a Web site called demsextrememakeover.com.

Backdrops and images

Kerry has been preparing his rebuttal to the "Massachusetts liberal" label for years. Among his arguments: Ronald Reagan carried the state twice. It was the second state after California to revolt against high property taxes. Mitt Romney is its fourth consecutive Republican governor. "Massachusetts is mainstream," Kerry said in 2001.

Its history makes it an asset, campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill says, "a unique place to highlight the patriotism that is a central theme of our convention." Democrats are expected to use iconic Boston sites and events — Old Ironsides, the Boston Tea Party, the battles of Bunker Hill and Lexington and Concord — as touchstones.

Ann Richards, the former Texas governor who lost her re-election bid to George W. Bush in 1994, demonstrated how to turn one of those images into a zinger. "This is the town of Paul Revere," she drawled at a fundraising lunch here this month. "Remember 'one if by land, two if by sea?' He had better information for the American people than this White House."

Still, the legacy hovers.

Last fall, when Kerry formally announced his candidacy, his first stop was with veterans in Charleston, S.C., an aircraft carrier in the background. He visited Iowa and New Hampshire before returning here for a rip-roaring rally with Kennedy.

But the appearance by the two men side-by-side didn't get many headlines. By then, Kerry's tour was old news.