Kerry Hits Boston For Fund-Raiser

Fresh from a morning taping on the “Dr. Phil Show,” Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry returned home to Massachusetts for a Saturday night fund-raising dinner that raised $3 million.

“It was fun to meet with a prominent Texan who tells the truth,” he said of Phil McGraw, the television psychologist from President George W. Bush’s home state.

With election day just six weeks from Tuesday, Kerry ensured a crowd of about 1,000 local supporters at the newly completed Boston Convention and Exhibition Center that he is not discouraged by his deficit to President Bush at this point in the race.

“I feel those October juices flowing,” Kerry said. “And I’ve been at this for a while and when those juices get flowing, I feel good.”

In his short but energized speech Kerry told stories from the campaign trail and criticized Bush for the war in Iraq and the state of the economy.

“They don’t have a record to run on, they have a record to run away from,” Kerry said.

Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, also spoke at the dinner, telling the crowd how much she has enjoyed campaigning with her husband.

“The greatest gift of this campaign has been meeting the wonderful people of this country,” Heinz said.

The fund-raiser—the last one that Kerry will attend before the election—required a minimum donation of $1,000 to attend the pre-dinner cocktail reception and $5,000 to attend the entire program.

While the high donation requirement prohibited most Harvard students from attending, at least one found his way into the dinner—Undergraduate Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05, who said he was the guest of local Kerry campaign donors for whom he baby-sits.

Mahan wrote in an e-mail that he sympathizes with the effort Kerry has put into his campaign.

“I have to tell you that as fun as campaigns are, I don’t envy him right now,” Mahan wrote. “I sleep few enough hours as it is, and I can’t imagine how much coffee he must drink.”

Although Harvard students were hard to come by at the dinner, several dozen Tufts students got a free invite in exchange for an a cappella performance.

Three Tufts a cappella groups—the Amalgamates, the Beelzebubs and the Jackson Jills—sang patriotic songs before and after Kerry’s speech.

Anna D. Vodscka, the president of the Amalgamates, said her group received a surprise phone call inviting them to perform at the event about a week and a half ago.

“Everybody was so excited that we were willing to put in the extra practice time,” Vodscka said.

While not everyone was so lucky to score a ticket to the event, people found other ways of participating.

About 50 people lined the street outside of the convention center to show support for Kerry and possibly get a glimpse of their candidate.

“We’d just like to see him drive by,” said Chris Wohlers, a 15 year-old home-schooled student from Boston.

Many of the donors inside the event expressed similarly strong support for Kerry and uneasiness about Bush administration policies. Marshall Bradstreet, a local businessman, said this was the first time he had donated to a political campaign and that he felt a strong urge to do so.

“There is so much optimism with the Kerry campaign,” Bradstreet said. “I kept an open mind with the Bush administration, but I have been nothing but disappointed.”

Most of the volunteer staffers at the event were college students, including several from Harvard. But the volunteers declined comment, saying the night was about John Kerry.

—Staff writer Evan M. Vittor can be reached at evittor@fas.harvard.edu.