Enter Hamlet or Henry ... America waits to see

By RUPERT CORNWELL in Boston

This is a week in four acts for John Kerry.

For the first three, the hero of the piece will be off-stage, progressing from battleground state to battleground state, moving steadily closer to the convention city, where in his absence a dozen speakers will sing his praises to the sky.

Only distant echoes of his march will reach Boston.

But on Friday, the man himself will march on-stage. And for the Democratic half of America, and much of the rest of the world beside, there is but one question: will he be Hamlet or Henry V?

Kerry's drawbacks are well-documented. As Barack Obama, the Democrats' new wunderkind who will deliver the keynote address in Boston, observed of him: "Sometimes John Kerry has no oomfph."

He is no orator, although the arrival of the vibrant John Edwards has infected Kerry with a little borrowed excitement.

Nor is spontaneity among his gifts. Try as he may, his every word and every deed look planned; deliberately chosen to achieve a desired effect.

Of course, he knows the issues well, far better than Bush - but maybe too well. Calculation also means nuance, to cover every facet of an argument, and leaves no target for the enemy. But his cleverness can tumble into nonsense.

"Yes, I voted for it [a US$87 billion appropriation for Iraq] before I voted against it," Kerry famously said.

There is a convoluted explanation for this, but no audience will sit quietly around to absorb it.

Small wonder the most direct hit of the Bush campaign has been to brand Kerry a "flipflopper", a Hamlet who cannot make up his mind.

But on one thing he has never wavered. He has always wanted to be President - and like Bill Clinton, though perhaps less overtly - he has shown it. So aggressively did he seek the presidency of the Yale Political Union in the 1960s that he might have been campaigning for the White House. His classmates even teased him with serenades of Hail to the Chief.

When he returned from Vietnam as a disillusioned hero to testify to Congress against the war he was plainly a young man with big ambitions.

There have been stumbles along the way - a failed House campaign in 1972, the break-up of his first marriage, the anguish of recurring memories of Vietnam and of comrades lost, and, barely seven months ago, the seemingly imminent demise of a lacklustre, unfocused presidential campaign.

But Kerry is never better than when staring down the barrel of defeat. He came back from political death. Now, he is about to accept his party's crown.


Last but not least, as Obama has also noted, "John Kerry historically always hit his mark when it counted."

As this year's primary season turnaround showed, he is a good closer. He is also an imposing and skilled debater - one likely to prove a far tougher opponent for Bush than the dreary and condescending Al Gore four years ago.

But what of John Kerry the President? Forget the ultra-liberal label Republicans have tried to pin on him. On Iraq, he promises to be more internationalist than Bush, otherwise his policy scarcely differs. On the economy, he is a free-trader and a deficit hawk who would raise taxes on the rich to help pay for the war and modestly expand healthcare coverage.

If it all sounds like Bill Clinton, it is. Like Clinton, Kerry would govern from the centre, not from the left as Bush has governed so aggressively from the right.

Yes, he may be short on "oomfph". Kerry is a cautious politician, but after the recklessnesses of Iraq, that could also be a virtue.

If he shows Americans he is competent and strong, with a sensible-yet-uplifting plan, the John Kerry week in Boston could ensure that the four years starting on Inauguration Day next January 20 belong to him as well.

- INDEPENDENT