Over the course of a scatter-gun, hourlong, extemporaneous report — rich in examples of how the federal government has ceased working effectively for the American people, U.S. Sen. John Kerry was angry, frustrated and not particularly optimistic yesterday.
"This is about as complicated and challenging a time as I've seen in my whole life," Kerry conceded to a breakfast gathering of about 150 paying guests of the Chamber of Commerce at the Gloucester House restaurant.
For the 64-year-old Democrat who is seeking his fourth, six-year term in the Senate this fall as a consolation for falling tantalizingly short in his campaign to wrest the presidency from George W. Bush in 2004 — "within 59,000 votes," he noted in a self-deprecating anecdote — Kerry found good reason to be discouraged:
r The economy is facing a "crisis of confidence" that will last at least 10 months.
r Defense contractors have been evading paying taxes by funneling federal payments through shell companies in the Cayman Islands.
r The Senate, in which he has served long enough to reach the mid-level of seniority, remains in the clutches of the minority Republican Party because of its capacity and willingness to filibuster.
r The traditional system of bill-making in Congress has eroded to the point that "we don't even have conference committees anymore."
r Powerful businesses get special tax breaks so transparently that many "have their own tax page" in the 27,000 page code.
r The federal government — president and Congress — has taken to giving marching orders to the lower governmental levels to end pollution and improve education without the requisite financing for the required work, thus creating "unfunded mandates."
"Teachers are digging into their own pockets to buy materials; it's a disgrace," he said.
Unfunded mandates weigh on Gloucester and vex Mayor Carolyn Kirk so much that she importuned Kerry in January, in his first visit of the year to Gloucester, to meet her. He then invited her to speak directly on the subject to a Senate committee.
Final plans for Kirk's appearance remain incomplete, according to Kerry press secretary Bridget O'Rourke, who with two policy aides joined the senator in a two-car caravan on the Senate-financed trip from Boston to the North Shore.
After his breakfast comments, Kerry, with entourage in tow, was heading to Marblehead High School, where students had written to the senator about the crisis in Darfur.
"Kerry was moved by the concern and activism of these young people and is visiting ... to personally respond to the students who wrote the letters," a press release from his office explained.
From Marblehead, O'Rourke said, Kerry went to Boston, where he taped interviews with two television stations.
Amid all the negativity, most of it, in his analysis, emanating from Bush's White House and administration, Kerry let the Gloucester House audience know he was soldiering on.
Among many initiatives he cited, Kerry noted he recently joined with two Democratic congressmen to file a bill to plug the offshore tax loophole exploited by Kellogg Brown & Root.
Kerry showed his macho side by joking about the emergency helicopter landing last month in Afghanistan. He and fellow Sens. Joseph Biden and Chuck Hagel were forced down by a snow squall. Kerry quipped about getting Biden to give a speech to keep them aloft.
Otherwise, his only mention of the nation's war in Iraq and Afghanistan was to recall how Osama bin Laden released a tape in the last week before the last presidential election that froze tracking polls that were trending Kerry's way. In Kerry's recollection, the trend was reversed and he lost.
"Don't take anything for granted," he cautioned the audience.
Kirk said she was impressed by Kerry's ease at tracing issues from the federal to the local levels.
"The question is: 'Can he deliver?' I left feeling he can," she said.
So far, Kerry faces a Democratic primary challenge posed by Gloucester lawyer Edward O'Reilly. Dracut farmer and small businessman James Ogonowski has announced a Republican campaign for the seat Kerry is running to keep.
Ogonowski, whose brother, John Ogonowski, an American Airlines pilot, was killed in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, ran for the U.S. House in the 5th District seat last year. He narrowly lost to Lowell Democrat Niki Tsongas.
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