Senator John Kerry campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination on Wednesday in the Macalester Field House.

A crowd of about 2,400 people comprised of Macalester community members, Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) political officials, a large number of Twin Cities residents and union members gathered to hear the Massachusetts senator speak. Local and national media outlets covered the speech, Kerry’s only appearance in Minnesota before the caucuses this Tuesday.

“J-K! All the way!” chanted the audience after former St. Paul Mayor and Professor of Urban Studies George Latimer led several opening speakers onto the stage to rally the crowd.

Kerry jogged in from behind the main bleachers with Vice President Walter Mondale ’50. Mondale introduced Kerry to the crowd.

The Democratic front-runner openedhis speech by thanking Mondale for his attendance.

“I’m so delighted to be here tonight with [a] former vice president of the United States,” Kerry said.

“It’s an honor to be here in Minnesota [where] most of our above-average voters have had the great good sense to vote Democratic in every presidential race since 1976,” Kerry said, echoing the words of Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar, an opening speaker who referenced local radio host Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.”

“The women are strong, the men good-looking and the voters above average,” Klobuchar said.

In his speech, Kerry challenged President Bush on the economy, health care and foreign policy. Kerry called on Minnesotans to support him at the caucuses.

“We are here not just to count down to next Tuesday,” Kerry said. “We are here to mark the beginning of the end of the Bush presidency.”

On the economy, Kerry charged Bush with devastating the national budget.

“Every day a billion dollars is added to the deficit of our nation. For the kids that are here, that’s your future,” he said.

Kerry then scorned corporate leaders who relocate offshore to avoid paying taxes. He called for scouring the tax code to remove “every benefit” for “Benedict Arnold CEOs” who remove their companies from the federal tax rolls.

Kerry introduced his plan to prevent anyone in government from lobbying for five years after leaving a government position.

Changing the subject to health care, Kerry said to the crowd that his successful recovery from prostate cancer was due in part to the exceptional health care coverage federal legislators provide themselves.

“I am cured and cancer-free … because I have the best health care in the world,” Kerry said. “I promise when I am president, [federal legislators’ health care] will be the gold standard for the nation.”

Later in his speech, Kerry pointed to his foreign policy experience, citing his involvement in the investigation of Ronald Reagan’s participation in the Iran-Contra affair.

Kerry said that he believes that the Bush Administration’s foreign policy is the “most inept, arrogant, reckless, ideological foreign policy in American history.” He added that he believes multilateralism is a strength, distinguishing himself from what he described as Bush’s unilateralism.

Kerry said he would return to the United Nations to turn over a new page in American relations with the world.

The Mac Weekly later asked Senator Kerry if he believed that the intelligence distortions on Iraq should be treated as a criminal matter akin to the Iran-Contra affair.

“I have no evidence yet that it should be, but I think that we need a much more rapid and thorough investigation than the administration is currently pursuing,” Kerry said. “I think that this idea of doing it by 2005 is a complete election gimmick. It ought to be done in a matter of months, and that will determine what ought to be done.”

Rapid event planning

The Kerry event came together in a hurry, according to the Macalester Democrats who helped organize the event.

On Saturday, Macalester Democrats organizer Danny Schwartzman ’04 received a call from Ken Martin, a member of the Minnesota Kerry campaign staff. Martin said that the state campaign wanted Macalester to host Kerry’s only pre-caucus Minnesota appearance.

Ten minutes later, members of Kerry’s advance team arrived on campus to look at the facilities, according to Schwartzman.

Schwartzman said that the team chose the Field House because it is the only space on campus that can handle the campaign’s predicted number of attendees and members of the press.

On Saturday, Schwartzman relayed the message to Director of Campus Programs Brian Wagner and Director of College Relations Doug Stone. Wagner worked to have all Wednesday team practices canceled and handled a number of logistical details for the event. Stone helped coordinate the official Macalester publicity, Schwartzman said.

Schwartzman said he received a final confirmation of the event from Kerry’s national campaign staff on Sunday.

According to Schwartzman, Kerry’s campaign staff chose Macalester because it is close to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and because the college has what he calls a long history of participation with the Democratic party.

The Macalester Democrats hosted an emergency planning meeting Sunday night and planned publicity efforts to encourage Macalester students to attend the rally.

“It was the most intense publicizing I’ve ever done,” Mac Democrats Chair Andrea Johnson ’06 said.

The rest of the Kerry advance team arrived on Tuesday night to begin setting up for the event. At 11 p.m., two large trucks backed into the parking lot south of the Field House and more than a dozen workers began unloading sound and lighting equipment.

The Kerry campaign brought in bleachers, risers, gates, spotlights and banners. Event specialists also erected large walls that divided the Field House into sections for members of the campaign staff, the traveling press and the audience.

The day of the event

Members of the press began arriving at 2 p.m., but the St. Paul Police Bomb Squad cleared the Field House for a bomb check soon afterwards. Agents from Kerry’s Secret Service security detail assisted the police in securing the building.

St. Paul Police Commander Mike Moorhead refused to comment on the number of police staff working the event, but at least five police vehicles were on campus, including a number of sedans and black Explorers used to transport the Secret Service agents.

Students and members of the community began filing into the Field House at 4:45 p.m. and the space quickly filled to capacity. According to Moorhead, the state fire marshal closed the doors shortly after 5 p.m., when the crowd reached 2,400, the maximum number of people allowed by the Field House’s fire code. Between 500 and 1,000 people were left standing outside, he said.

According to Latimer, because the event was planned on short notice, many of the speakers had little time to prepare for the event. The campaign contacted Latimer only 48 hours in advance to inform him that he would be leading introductions. He returned to St. Paul on a flight from Washington, D.C. just after 4 p.m. and arrived at Macalester just in time to be handed the speakers list, he said.

“I thought it would be tight … but I’m here to serve,” he said.

There was so little time to prepare speeches, Klobuchar said, that no one from the Kerry staff looked over what the guests were going to say.

Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) President Simone King also spoke. King said she was introduced as a student leader, and not as the president of MCSG, in order to ensure that her views were not misrepresented as those of the student body.

There were also a number of problems with providing access to the event for important members of the Twin Cities political community.

“We had no sort of VIP list,” event organizer Elana Wolowitz ’04 said.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak was among those left waiting in line after the state fire marshal closed the Field House doors.

Speech draws diverse protests

About 60 protesters representing a wide political spectrum showed up at the Kerry event. They gathered on the sidewalk and in the street in front of the main entrance to the Field House, chanting, carrying signs and banners and debating with Kerry supporters.

The protesters espoused a variety of viewpoints on issues ranging from globalization to the Iraq war. Supporters of Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Senator John Edwards participated, along with various student groups.

“I love being from Minnesota because people can say whatever they want,” Rybak said.

College Republicans attending in support of President George W. Bush chanted “Four more years!” Their shouts garnered both angry reactions from people waiting to enter the event and waving and honking from passersby on Snelling Ave.

State Chairman of the Minnesota College Republicans Jake Grassel said he believed that the large number of college students attending the Kerry event did not accurately represent the political leanings of most Minnesota students.

“We just wanted to come and let people know that although John Kerry is on a college campus, the majority of college students in Minnesota aren’t supporting his campaign,” Grassel said.

Other students expressed a more liberal perspective.

Andy Haug ’06 said that he and his group did not represent any specific student organization, but simply wanted to illustrate that Kerry is not dramatically different from Bush.

“We don’t want people to be turned off by what we’re doing by being affiliated with an organization,” Haug said.

Protester and Mac Greens member Jesse Mortensen ’05 described his reason for protesting. “My main goal is to complicate the picture of ‘anybody but Bush’ that people are painting,” he said.

Haug also voiced his frustration that John Kerry supported many of the issues on which Democrats criticize Bush, citing examples such as the Iraq war, NAFTA, No Child Left Behind and the Patriot Act.