How to Make a Senator Sweat

But then, understandable and acceptable are two different things. Which brings us to stop three on the Corner tour: a Dunkin' Donuts in Framingham. Again, Kerry was 45 minutes late, leaving dozens of supporters to roast in the sun. This time the crowd got to spar a bit with a pair of middle-aged twin brothers, Jim and Joe Rizoli, who kept shoving a camcorder in their faces and accusing them of destroying America with their sordid lust for undocumented immigration. One of the Rizolis promised to confront the Insufficiently Patriotic senator, then air the exchange on his public-access show, Illegal Immigration Chat (to the presumed delight of several other sets of Framingham-based middle-aged twin brothers who might want to try spending less time together). As it happened, the Rizolis should've tried Lowell instead. In Framingham, the Dunkies was so mobbed, they were unable to properly buttonhole Kerry.

When the senator did show up, he was energized, natural, working the crowd with panache. People were drawn to him. "Hey, man," he said, jabbing one in the shoulder. "How you doin'? Nice to see you." A guy in a spandex cycling getup stood by the door. "Looks like he's riding a bike, that's my man." Kerry went inside, climbed on a chair, and said, "I bring you exciting news. As of today there's only 137 more days of George Bush," to torrents of applause. He gave a good speech, punching at the air, stressing the importance of the presidential election and winning more Senate seats to break the gridlock on healthcare, energy, education, and everything else that presently sucks. "What's happened?" he asked. "I'll tell you what's happened: The most greedy, self-centered, mean-spirited group of people I've ever seen have been wielding the levers of power, and as a result the wealthiest people in America are getting wealthier and wealthier, and people struggling to get into the middle class are having a harder and harder time. We can change that, folks. Believe me, we can change that." In an attempt at further de-Volpefication, he added, "I need your help in these next weeks. I never take anything for granted, I don't care what anybody says. You go out and you work. You remember to ask people for their votes, their time, and their effort."

The Dunkin' Donuts franchise was on Concord Street, which is strewn with tidy bundles of political capital. It's like Pac-Man for visiting pols. Before leaving Framingham, Kerry got to hit the independent bank next door, pause to say hello to an old vet sitting in a lawn chair across the street, visit the proprietors of a Brazilian deli and an Asian market, stand thoughtfully before a war memorial, and drop by a police station.

Along the way, a fat, sneering, toothless man in a soiled wife-beater started pointing at Kerry and yelling, "Bush! I'm a Bush man!" A true dead-ender. "Well," Kerry said, mildly annoyed, without turning around, "he brought you a great economy." Everyone laughed.

It was the kind of performance that may cast some light on the strange phenomenon of John Kerry for those who often wonder aloud how this same man came to be a long-serving senator and a near-miss candidate for the White House. Kerry looked good, and people were happy to see him so engaged and energetic. But being happy that a candidate appears to care is like being excited that the toilet flushed or the stairs didn't collapse as you went up them. It's the mark of something critical having gone wrong. However well Kerry did that day, and however intense his recent flurry of activity in the Senate on energy costs, housing issues, and nanotech research, and however hard his staff is working to reach out to primary voters and party swells, and however badly he trounces Ed O'Reilly in the primary, the question of whether he's really in this for the long run will linger.

At the Framingham police station, Kerry told me that all the talk of his getting a cabinet job is "pure speculation," and that "my plan is to be a senator, and that's what I'm going to do." Asked if he would say categorically that he'd decline such a position if offered, Kerry executed the standard dodge. "I can say categorically that I'm not asking for a job, and I don't think anybody's going to offer me one," he said. "I'm not running for anything else but senator." And if he were Framingham's garbage commissioner, he would be obligated not just to conceal his higher political ambitions, but to also go around telling people that sometimes he positively buries his face in cans of rotting trash, because the bouquet of spent diapers and decaying produce reminds him precisely how good he has it.

Time will tell. In the meantime, Ed O'Reilly's not wasting any chances to raise doubts. "[Kerry] should put up $2 million now to pay for the special election," O'Reilly suggested, standing in the sweltering parking lot outside the Elks hall in Gloucester before heading to his next event. "The Massachusetts taxpayers should not have to foot the bill in February to fill his seat. Right now, he's running for secretary of state."