Inside The Inner Circles

By Karen Tumulty/Washington

If the hallmark of George W. Bush's management style is the faith he puts in a tight, unchanging inner circle, a look at those who surround John Kerry suggests that his approach is almost the opposite. Kerry's team is wider in reach but narrower in influence than Bush's, more a kaleidoscope than a circle. Depending on the question at hand, Kerry may draw upon old friends, new allies or even former adversaries. Yet none of them ever enjoy more than a limited hold on him. "He makes a cut on what people bring to a discussion," says Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill, a relatively new star in the candidate's universe. "A lot of people talk to him on a lot of subjects, but on any given subject, there's a very small number of people he trusts and he listens to."

So it's hard to imagine that there would be any guru-like figure--a Karl Rove or a Karen Hughes--in a Kerry White House. Kerry has said John Edwards' influence as Vice President would be far smaller than Dick Cheney's, which the Democratic challenger calls "excessive." At the same time, Kerry is someone who is constantly reaching out for advice. "The Kerry political world is always expanding," says his longtime adviser John Marttila.

That can be a good thing and a bad one for those within that world. People who have worked with him say that when things are going well and Kerry is confident in his strategy and team--as seems to be the case now--he is a nearly ideal boss, focused on managing the big picture and rarely sweating the details. When things get rocky--like when his campaign was struggling to get its footing last fall--his tendency to consult widely but keep his own counsel can drive aides crazy. "He is famous for keeping people in the dark and for second-guessing and going around people for advice," says an associate. "There are very few people he trusts unreservedly."

If Kerry's trust is given only sparingly, his loyalty isn't. Among the legions of advisers and strategists in his 2004 campaign are about a dozen like Marttila and pollster Tom Kiley who can trace their connection to Kerry all the way back to his failed 1972 campaign for Congress. Many of them had felt shut out by the first manager of Kerry's presidential campaign, Jim Jordan, which was in no small measure why Jordan was fired in November. When Senator Edward Kennedy's then chief of staff Cahill came aboard, she moved quickly into the role of gatekeeper, cutting off Kerry's back-channel contacts and ensuring that almost all communication went through her. (Cahill and Kerry talk at least half a dozen times a day.) She brought in some of her own team, most notably communications director Stephanie Cutter. But Cahill, a daughter of Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, also made sure Kerry's longest-standing advisers had a say in campaign strategy--something Kerry wanted as well. His Washington pollster Mark Mellman was the one who first spotted the opportunity for Kerry to revive his dying primary campaign by taking out a $6.4 million personal loan and making a counterintuitive pivot from New Hampshire to Iowa. But before Kerry signed off on the high-risk gambit, the candidate dispatched his old Boston hand Kiley to Iowa to confirm Mellman's numbers.

As Kerry celebrated victory on the night of the Iowa caucuses, he paid tribute to "the magical Michael Whouley"--a name now revered among Democratic insiders as one of the party's most gifted organizers but someone who got his start in Kerry's world as a streetwise kid from Dorchester, working precincts in Kerry's successful 1982 race for Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor. And Kerry has turned to another old Boston hand, John Sasso, once chief of staff for former Governor Michael Dukakis. After effectively securing the Democratic nomination in March, Kerry installed Sasso as his eyes and ears on--and therefore the de facto head of--the Democratic National Committee (D.N.C.). Though Kerry continues to talk frequently with D.N.C. chairman Terry McAuliffe, a Bill Clinton ally, it is typical for a nominee to put his own person in charge of the party machinery.

No adviser's ties to Kerry go so far back or so deep as those of two men who are related to him by blood or marriage--his younger brother Cameron and his former brother-in-law David Thorne. Cam was the first Kerry to make an impression on many of Boston's politicos; they remember him as a sophomore at Harvard in 1970, making the rounds of pacifist political circles in an effort to win their backing for the abortive effort of his war-hero-turned-war-protester brother to put together a campaign for Congress that year. (The peace activists went instead for Father Robert Drinan.) Cam, a Boston lawyer, has been a presence in every Kerry campaign since then. But he has no evident aspirations to become the next Bobby Kennedy, preferring to stay behind the scenes in roles that carry no title. Although neither brother divulges what they talk about, Kerry aides take it as a given that an idea is far more likely to go over with the candidate if Cam is on board. "He is both a quiet force," says a longtime Kerry strategist, "and a force to be reckoned with." The brothers have been known to speak to each other in French on conference calls when they don't want others to know what they are saying.

Thorne and Kerry became friends as freshmen at Yale; the following year Thorne introduced his twin sister Julia to Kerry, and they fell in love almost instantly. While Kerry's marriage to Julia foundered over his political career, his bond with Thorne was deepened by it. Thorne was Kerry's campaign manager in the 1972 congressional race, and there's no one whose judgment of people Kerry trusts more, say those who know them. He still calls Thorne often; these days, it's usually late at night from the road. And even amid a hectic presidential campaign, the Senator rarely gets back to Boston without making some time for Thorne, now a publisher and a financial broker. Some new realities have inevitably intruded on the intimacy of their old friendship--like the Secret Service agents tagging along for their 30-mile bicycle ride in the countryside around Boston two weeks ago. "One thing was for sure," Thorne says, laughing, "Nobody was going to pass us."

By the time Kerry's second wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, joined his world, she was already a prominent activist and philanthropist in environmental, health and education causes. Kerry credits her with shaping his thinking on all those issues, particularly about the ways in which business and government can work together. And while the outspoken Heinz Kerry insists she is merely "the wife," she has not hesitated to occasionally offer public criticism of campaign decisions--for instance, telling reporters last year that Kerry should have been advertising on television earlier.

Kerry's toughest political battle, at least until now, was his 1996 fight for re-election against Massachusetts' popular Republican Governor William Weld. That election drew into Kerry's world the storied, sharp-elbowed media consultant Bob Shrum, who toughened Kerry's ads and message. Shrum made his name as a speechwriter for Edward Kennedy's failed 1980 presidential campaign, and no Democrat who was there will ever forget how Kennedy brought down the house at the Democratic Convention that year with the Shrum-crafted line that "the dream shall never die." It's that kind of magic candidates are looking for when they hire Shrum, but he is also known for bringing a populist edge and internal foment, and the extent of his influence over Kerry today is the subject of much intrigue in Washington political circles. Shrum's political-consulting partner Tad Devine has become the face of the campaign on the cable shout shows. But Kerry campaign insiders say it is the third and quietest partner, Mike Donilon, who has the most day-to-day impact on Kerry and his message. Says an adviser: "If Kerry wants a real gut check on something--a feel for where things are going--he calls Donilon."

Though Kerry rarely shows up these days on the Senate floor, he has carried much of that world into his presidential campaign. He still relies on his Senate staff, particularly chief of staff David McKean and foreign policy adviser Nancy Stetson, for policy advice. Kerry's Senate press secretary, David Wade, has moved over to the campaign, where he has logged more miles with the candidate than any other adviser and become an important arbiter of what is and isn't working on the stump. For those tricky situations that only a peer would know how to navigate, Kerry turns to his closest Senate colleagues. Chief among them is Kennedy, who not only recommended his chief of staff Cahill to put the campaign back on course but also has been a tireless booster and fund raiser. Former Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, a fellow Vietnam veteran and a triple amputee from that war, has become one of the candidate's most stalwart campaigners, validating Kerry's service and fueling the veteran-outreach operation that helped put Kerry over the top in Iowa. And for advice on how to translate his complicated foreign policy views from Senatespeak into something that might be understood in Dubuque, Kerry seeks out Delaware's Joseph Biden.

Kerry talks with some frequency to Bill and Hillary Clinton, though all three are vague when asked for specifics. Still, it was probably significant that the Clintons were two of the first people Kerry called with the news that he had selected Edwards as his running mate. Meanwhile, some of the biggest names from the Clinton diaspora have found new homes--and possibly future employment--in Kerry's world. For economic policy, Kerry taps former White House economic adviser Gene Sperling, Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman. He also asks them to speak on his behalf in the daily sound-bite war with the Bush campaign. Clinton's U.N. representative Richard Holbrooke is so influential when it comes to Kerry's foreign policy views that he is considered the odds-on favorite to become Secretary of State if Kerry is elected. Kerry even picked up a hire from the Bush White House. When Rand Beers quit as Bush's senior assistant for counterterrorism, contending that Bush had gone to war in Iraq too soon and taken his eye off the global war on terrorism, Beers quickly found a home in the Kerry campaign as a senior foreign policy adviser.

For most politicians, it is a nearly automatic disqualifier if even the most gifted potential aide or adviser has worked for an opponent. They and their loyalists keep lists, which is why you find precious few veterans of the John McCain campaign occupying fancy offices in the Bush White House and why those who battled on behalf of Bob Kerrey in the 1992 Democratic primaries had a tough time finding work with Clinton. But not so with Kerry, who even went so far as to tap a former rival as a running mate. "The thing about Kerry is, he doesn't hold grudges at all," says Cahill. As his opponents in the Democratic primary dropped out one by one, the Kerry campaign unabashedly vacuumed up the top talent from their operations. Even before naming Edwards to the ticket, Kerry had scouted and hired some of his erstwhile staff members: former Edwards chief of staff Miles Lackey became Kerry's deputy campaign manager for policy and speechwriting, communications aide David Ginsburg went on to serve that function for Kerry, and press secretary Jennifer Palmieri came aboard as his spokeswoman in the crucial state of Ohio. Before that, Kerry had recruited Dick Gephardt's longtime aide and top strategist, Steve Elmendorf, as deputy campaign manager.

Kerry's political world is a far bigger place than it was 34 years ago, when his college-age brother had to plead for Boston's political kingmakers to give him even a look. But it's the nature of how things work in Washington that when a politician starts looking like the One, you will find legions of people who claim to have his ear. Kerry does indeed give many a listen. But as his spokesman Wade put it, "He's his own big thinker. He's not looking for people to make it easy for him." Nor does he always make it easy for those in his inner circles.