John Kerry was in town for a rally yesterday, and I took advantage of my summer vacation to attend. You can read a substantive account of the event here; my impressionistic account follows.

The odd thing about seeing John Kerry in person is that he looks exactly like he does on television, which in my experience is usually not the case. Bill Clinton, for instance, is a much more commanding presence in person; he looks doughy on TV but big in a good way up close. This isn't, by any means, a slam on Kerry, but it's sufficiently odd as to be noteworthy. I stuck around after the event and got a handshake; unlike Hank Hill in 2000, I won't be having a crisis of conscience over the strength of my preferred candidate's handshake. It was better than Mondale's, weaker than Clinton's, and a shade stronger than Gore's.

The event itself was held at the U of M's Sports Pavillion, and outside the venue there was a healthy and annoying air of political entrepreneurship going on: People with flyers, people with petitions, people selling buttons ($5 each, 3 for $10; I saw no instances of people pooling their money to get better deals, which suggests that Democrats are not rational economic actors), that sort of thing. These buttons weren't official campaign ones, as far as I could tell, but rather the home-grown desktop publishing variety. I couldn't help but wonder if the people selling them were partisans or had a slate of Bush buttons ready to go for any appearances he might make here.

Doors opened at 10, but nothing happened until around noon, when local politicians began an interminable series of speeches setting up the audience. This is the part of these things you never see on television; fortunately, the sound system was so bad it was difficult to make much of these speeches out. Things finally got rolling (painful pun not intended) when Max Cleland and one of Kerry's Navy buddies introduced him. As a speaker, Kerry's sort of an odd duck; he's not one to rile the audience into a frenzy so much as make you nod your head and think, "Senator Kerry is certainly very knowledgable and thoughtful and I think I'll vote for him!" Except that this audience, at least, got itself into a frenzy anyway, which I think is indicative of how deeply displeasure with Bush runs among the Democratic base. That's good as far as it goes, I just hope the more nutty wing of the party doesn't trip things up for the Kerry campaign.

One interesting thing that I noticed about Kerry's talk came when he was citing past Presidential accomplishments as examples of what the Presidency can accomplish: Washington setting the course of the nation, Jefferson expanding the country, Lincoln holding it together, FDR leading it out of the Depression and to victory in WW II, and then what caught my attention: Truman establishing a policy for the Cold War that "every President on to Ronald Reagan" (or words to that effect) followed to defeat Communism. I wonder if this has been a standard line in Kerry's appearances, or if it was included because news of Reagan's failing health was starting to leak out?