Kerry to Form Committee to Explore 2004 Run

WASHINGTON —  Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said Sunday that he is forming an exploratory committee this week in anticipation of a 2004 bid for the White House.

“It’s an enormous step and it’s not one I take lightly, but it’s one that I’m excited about,” the decorated Vietnam War veteran said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It’s a challenge.”

Kerry’s move was widely expected. Once he files the papers to launch a committee, he can begin raising money to gauge whether he has backing as a serious presidential candidate. A formal announcement of his candidacy is “down the road some months,” he said.

A recent Los Angeles Times Poll of Democratic Party insiders found strong support for Kerry as the party’s presidential candidate. The poll found no clear-cut favorite, but when read a list of 10 prospective nominees, 19% of those surveyed named former Vice President Al Gore, the party’s presidential candidate in 2000, as their top choice and 18% named Kerry. Nearly half those polled said Gore should sit out the race.

The Democratic field is expected to be crowded. Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is exploring a bid. Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina also have expressed interest. Gore has said that he will decide by early next month. His running mate in 2000, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, has said that he will run if Gore doesn’t.

“There are good people who are standing up. There are others who will contest. That’s part of the process,” Kerry said Sunday. “I want this to be a contest of ideas, and I want it to be based not on my running against anybody, but running for a vision for this country.”

There is, he said, “deep anxiety” in America about “job security, income security, retirement security, health security, education security, physical, personal security and, of course, national security. And, I think, literally on almost every issue facing the country, I believe there is a better choice for this nation.”

Soon after graduating from Yale University in 1966, Kerry entered the Navy, where he served on a gunboat in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. He received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for his combat service. When he returned from Vietnam, he began questioning U.S. involvement in that conflict, becoming a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Kerry, 58, was a lawyer and prosecutor in Massachusetts before being elected lieutenant governor in 1982. He was elected to the Senate two years later, and was unopposed when he ran for a fourth term in November.

In the Senate, he helped lead the investigation into the Iran-Contra affair -- in which money from secret U.S. arms sales to Iran in the early 1980s went to support rebels in Nicaragua in violation of congressional limitations -- and helped expose scandals at the Abu Dhabi-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which closed in 1991 after it was linked to secret weapon deals, drug money and terrorists.

Kerry has been a vocal critic of President Bush’s policy against Iraq, urging that Bush first go to the United Nations. Kerry eventually voted for the congressional resolution supporting U.S. action against Baghdad. He voted against the Gulf War in 1991. He has been sharply critical of Bush’s Middle East policy, repeating on Sunday that the administration had disengaged from that area of the world during its first year in office. He also opposes Bush’s tax cuts, saying they favor the rich.

“As people get to know me in the course of this, they’ll know the things that I have fought for and the things I stand for,” Kerry said on NBC.

One of the biggest hurdles for Kerry is whether he can successfully overcome questions that he is a New England liberal who cannot connect with the rest of the country. While studies have shown that he has voted with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) -- one of the Senate’s best-known liberals -- 93% of the time, Kerry also has taken more conservative positions on issues such as education reform, where he opposes tenure for teachers.

He portrayed himself Sunday as a tough former prosecutor with combat experience. He is married to Teresa Heinz -- whose first husband was Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.), the heir to the Heinz food fortune who died in 1991 -- and has two daughters.