Narrative Essay: The Day I Met John Kerry
October 29, 2013
The Day I Met John Kerry
On a cloudy and rainy day, I find myself reflecting on my life, searching for an experience that changed who I am in the world. I have had more than a few life-altering experiences in my 56, almost 57 years that have influenced my life in many profound ways. As a woman of many stories to tell, that all seem to intertwine in the narrative of my life, the one that stands in clear alignment when I map them all out, is the day I met John Kerry for the first time, ten years ago this month, September 2003. For that day ultimately empowered me and changed my life in many ways.
After spending a few months protesting the Iraq War with the local anti-war group, Neighbors for Peace and Justice, in Studio City, California near where I lived, I had begun writing on the internet about John Kerry, as a candidate for the 2004 presidential primary. Many of the pieces that I wrote about Kerry on Democratic Yahoo Groups were drawing numerous positive reactions. I decided that I should share what I was writing with the Kerry campaign, because one of the other Democratic candidates for president in 2004, Howard Dean had a lot of internet support, but John Kerry did not. I had self-marketed a small successful home business on the internet for the past few years, so I was determined to draw on that model and give John Kerry’s campaign a push on my own.
One day after a few weeks of sending pieces I had written about Kerry to info@JohnKerry.com, I received a phone call from Kerry for President Headquarters thanking me for all the supportive work I had been doing for Kerry’s campaign. That phone call jolted my familiar world. The campaign staffer, Dave Patton told me that John Kerry’s campaign manager Jim Jordan wanted to speak with me. I remember so clearly saying in response, “Get out! Jim Jordan wants to speak with me. I am a single mother, who runs a home business out of a 2 bedroom 2nd floor apartment, and you are telling me that Jim Jordan wants to speak with me!” “Yes he does,” Dave Patton replied. Still astonished, I repeated, “Get out.”
My conversation with Dave Patton and then Jim Jordan would lead to conversations with other members of Kerry’s staff and a lead donor of the campaign all urging me to get more involved with the campaign. The next thing I knew I was writing for the Kerry Campaign Blog as a lead writer, affectionately nicknamed by the staff, “The First Blogger.” I jumped into my new role with both feet and immersed myself in researching every position that Kerry had on the issues, past and present. Soon I knew those positions inside and out. I became a repository for knowledge about John Kerry, despite of the fact that I had had no background in politics before I took it into my head to write about Kerry for president on the internet. Suddenly, I found myself in a crash course in American Politics 101 and Presidential Elections 201.
After writing for the campaign blog for a few weeks, I was invited to speak at a campaign event at UCLA in Los Angeles. As the campaign’s “First Blogger,” I was to be the opening speaker at the event, followed by the candidate himself. Here I was, nervous as hell, for I had never done any public speaking in the past, opening for a speech from John Kerry. I thought how could I, a single mother with a home business, have anything to say about blogging that would pump up the Kerry supporters at the event. I jumped in again with both feet, reached past my comfort zone and apprehensively, but strangely confident too, I inspired the crowd with my enthusiasm for blogging for John Kerry. I had broken through a barrier of fear in my life and there was a bonus; I received a round of warm, hearty applause.
I returned to the backstage area of the university hall with my 14-year-old daughter, and waited anxiously while Kerry spoke. I had been instructed to look for Kerry’s body man Marvin Nicholson who would be arriving with Kerry and introduce myself to him while Kerry was speaking. Marvin, I was told would introduce me to John Kerry, after Kerry had spoken. Marvin took my daughter and me aside and said, “I am going to take you both outside to meet the Senator so you can speak to him privately after he greets the crowd. He is going to want to speak with you.”
And then my world changed. Suddenly the door opened and John Kerry bounded out. Marvin stopped him, saying “Senator, there is someone here you need to meet, this is Pamela Leavey, the ‘First Blogger’.” John Kerry looked at me with tears in his eyes, and said, “I know who you are. Thank you. Thank you for all you have done for my campaign.” He leaned over and hugged me as he spoke and his embrace was one of pure appreciation. I was hooked; first drawn into the world of politics, now my involvement was fastened with meeting the candidate in person. I would never be the same. My serendipitous involvement with John Kerry’s presidential campaign was secured with a thank you and a hug that was so genuine, that my life changed on a pivot that marked me as a person who had politics in her blood.
That first meeting with John Kerry became one of many over the next year and a half that I was involved with his presidential campaign. The subsequent years after the campaign I continued to write about Kerry on my own political blog and work with his press team in the Senate. As David Wade, Kerry’s Chief of Staff told me years ago, I had earned a special place in the Kerry “political family.” Unbeknownst to me at the time, Kerry would become my mentor in numerous ways after that initial introduction.
I would never be the same politically indifferent woman I was in my former days. I would feel more acutely passionate about the issues in America and around the world, for John Kerry inspired me to stay involved in politics, activism and political blogging. Working with Kerry, who served as U.S. Senator of Massachusetts, also instilled a sense of homesickness in me which drove me to move back home to Massachusetts after nearly 20 years of living in Los Angeles. Ultimately, John Kerry motivated me in to stay in the fray of the game, although I have tried many times to extricate myself from the blood sport of many men and few women, politics.
I would be remiss to not conclude, that John Kerry renewed in me a thirst for more knowledge. That thirst propelled me to go to school for my Contemporary Communications Certificate at UMass Lowell and now, work towards my B.A in English. I had found a new way to strive to make a difference in the world. I discovered that I had a voice in a world dominated by powerful men. In addition, some of those powerful men respected my voice; a voice I never knew existed some 10 years earlier. I had become empowered on a bright and sunny, early September 2003 day in Los Angeles, when I first met John Kerry in the back of a university hall on the campus of UCLA.
