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| Birth Name(s) : John Kerry |
Date of Birth: N/A |
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Full John Kerry Biography
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is the junior United States Senator from Massachusetts, in his fourth term of office. As the Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, he was defeated in the 2004 presidential election by the Republican incumbent President George W. Bush. Senator Kerry is currently the Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He is a Vietnam Veteran, and was a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War when he returned home from service. Before entering Senate, he served as a District Attorney and Lt. Governor of Massachusetts under Michael Dukakis, also a future Democratic Presidential nominee.
In 1962, Kerry was a volunteer for Ted Kennedy's first Senatorial campaign. That summer, he dated Janet Jennings Auchincloss, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's half-sister. Auchincloss invited Kerry to visit her family's estate, Hammersmith Farm, in Rhode Island. It was there that Kerry met President John F. Kennedy for the first time.
Kerry's prominence also made him a frequent leader and spokesman at antiwar events around the country in 1971. One of particular note was Operation POW, organized by the VVAW in Massachusetts. The protest got its name from the group's concern that Americans were prisoners of the Vietnam War, as well as to honor American POWs held captive by North Vietnam.
Despite his role in Operation POW and other VVAW events, Kerry eventually quit the organization over leadership differences. Kerry has been criticized regarding VVAW—see John Kerry VVAW controversy for more details.
As of 2007, Kerry serves on four Senate committees and twelve subcommittees:
- Committee on Finance
- Subcommittee on Health Care
- Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy
- Subcommittee on Long-term Growth and Debt Reduction
- Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship (Chairman)
- Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
- Subcommittee on Fisheries and the Coast Guard
- Subcommittee on Trade, Tourism and Economic Development
- Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation and Competitiveness
- Subcommittee on Global Climate Change and Impacts
- Subcommittee on National Ocean Policy Study
- Committee on Foreign Relations
- Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs
- Subcommittee on International Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion
- Subcommittee on International Operations and Terrorism
- Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps & Narcotics Affair
Kerry established a separate political action committee, Keeping America's Promise, that raised money and channeled contributions to Democratic candidates in state and federal races. Through Keeping America's Promise in 2005, Kerry raised over $5.5 million for other Democrats up and down the ballot. Through his campaign account and his political action committee, the Kerry campaign operation generated more than $10 million for various party committees and 179 candidates for the US House, Senate, state and local offices in 42 states focusing on the midterm elections during the last two years. "Cumulatively, John Kerry has done as much if not more than any other individual senator," Hassan Nemazee, the national finance chairman of the DSCC said.
On October 30, 2006, Kerry was a headline speaker at a campaign rally being held for Democratic California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California. Speaking to an audience composed mainly of college students, Kerry said, "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." Kerry said that he had intended the remark as a jab at President Bush, and described the remarks as a "botched joke", but he had inadvertently left out the key word "us" (which would have been, "If you don't, you get us stuck in Iraq"). In Kerry's prepared remarks, which were released during the ensuing media frenzy, the corresponding line was "… you end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."
A Roman Catholic, Kerry was said to carry a rosary, a prayer book, and a St. Christopher medal (the patron saint of travellers) when he campaigned. However, while Kerry is personally against abortion, he supports a woman's right to have one, which puts him at odds with the Catholic Church. Kerry is a Roman Catholic who supports abortion rights, like several other national political figures, including Rudolph Giuliani, George Pataki, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Discussing his faith, Kerry said, "I thought of being a priest. I was very religious while at school in Switzerland. I was an altar boy and prayed all the time. I was very centered around the Mass and the church." He also said that the Letters of Paul moved him the most, stating that they taught him to "not feel sorry for myself."
"I'm a Catholic and I practice, but at the same time I have an open-mindedness to many other expressions of spirituality that come through different religions. … I've spent some time reading and thinking about and trying to study it, and I've arrived at not so much a sense of the differences, but a sense of the similarities in so many ways; the value-system roots and linkages between the Torah, the Qur'an, and the Bible and the fundamental story that runs through all of this, that … really connects all of us." |
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