As Democrats Gather in Boston, Kerry Takes Campaign to Iowa

BOSTON —  Democrats began assembling Saturday beneath a gray sky in this soggy convention city, determined to put a sunny face on their gathering and boost Sen. John F. Kerry’s prospects against President Bush in November.

As the nominee-in-waiting slowly wended his way eastward to Massachusetts, his hometown of Boston tightened security and primped for a four-day turn in the national spotlight, starting Monday.

Kerry’s zigzag journey -- dubbed “The Freedom Trail” to evoke the walk in Boston that commemorates the city’s Revolutionary War heritage -- is taking him to some of this year’s key political battlegrounds.

On Saturday, he was in Iowa where he projected an upbeat message that reflected the tenor Democratic leaders hope will mark the coming week.

“What brings us here is not just a chance to cheer and a chance to feel good as a Democrat,” he told hundreds of people at an afternoon rally at a Sioux City park. “What brings us here are our hopes and dreams as Americans.”

“There’s always hope; there’s always the possibility of something better if we reach for it,” the Massachusetts senator added as the crowd cheered.

Kerry offered the same kind of buoyant sentiments in the Democrats’ weekly radio address. He said his campaign was “about listening and learning from Americans who believe in their heart that tomorrow can be better than today; Americans who are ready to build a stronger America that is once again respected in the world.”

Kerry also spoke of values, offering his interpretation of a word that Republicans have used to political advantage in recent elections.

“We value good-paying jobs that actually let Americans get ahead,” he said. “We value affordable healthcare that is a right, not a privilege, for every American. We value an America that is free and independent of Mideast oil. And we value a strong military and strong alliances, so that America never has to go to war because it wants to, but only because we have to.”

He never mentioned Bush, part of a strategy to focus less in the coming days on faulting the incumbent and more on offering Kerry’s personal story and vision for the country.

“This is not a bash-Bush convention,” said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who will wield the gavel inside the hall as the gathering’s chairman.

He and others were under strict instructions to be positive in their remarks to the 4,000-plus convention delegates and the millions watching at home, Richardson told reporters.

Asked if that might not disappoint the partisan die-hards eager to yell and shake their fists, Richardson said, “Our voters, our Democratic activists, are fired up regardless. Remember, it’s undecided voters we’re after. That is why we’re so conscious of sending a positive message.”

Pelted by a morning rain, Boston battened down on Saturday as if for a siege -- albeit of friendly invaders. The city where colonists first protested taxation without representation and Paul Revere took his famous midnight ride is hosting the first presidential convention in its more than 350-year history.

Booked-up hotels and restaurants laid in extra stocks of produce, liquor and bubbly water for delegates, Hollywood celebrities and an estimated 15,000 journalists.

As traffic crawled the short distance from Logan airport to downtown Boston, police patrolled city subways along with military personnel in camouflage. Officials said eight F-16 fighter jets would fly nonstop over the city, part of the beefed-up security at the nation’s first post-Sept. 11 major-party convention.

Armed Coast Guard crew members patrolled Boston Harbor, and police shut down 40 miles of roads near the Fleet Center, a concrete slab of a building that hosts pro basketball’s Celtics and hockey’s Bruins and will serve as the Democrats’ convention hall. A hundred security cameras aided swarms of security personnel on duty outside.

Among the more frustrated on Saturday were reporters -- and their helpers -- who waited hours to get inside their work quarters after an overnight security sweep.

“This is a huge pain,” said Joan Gallagher, who was steering two carts of bagels and pastries for Fox News through a crush of reporters waiting to pass through metal detectors. “It doesn’t seem to be organized very well.”

For some Bostonians, the hubbub was too much. Cruise ships leaving the city were booked solid this weekend, and many employers were bracing for high absenteeism during the convention.

The meeting opens Monday, but the roll call at which Kerry will formally be nominated does not take place until Wednesday night. On Thursday, Kerry delivers his acceptance speech -- historically, one of the key moments of the presidential campaign because it draws a wide audience of many tuning in to the race for the first time.

Kerry began building to that moment Saturday, with remarks that previewed those he was expected to offer in greater detail from the Fleet Center stage. The rally in Iowa was the second stop in Kerry’s six-day march to the convention, which will get him to Boston on Wednesday. That night, the convention will hear the acceptance speech by John Edwards, the senator from North Carolina whom Kerry picked as his running mate.

Kerry noted that his victory in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses in January set him on his path to the presidential nomination, and said a woman in Sioux City gave him a four-leaf clover four days before his win.

“That four-leafed clover has traveled with me every single day of this campaign,” he said, pulling the plastic-sheathed keepsake out of his pocket. “And it’s going with us to the White House on Nov. 2!”

Kerry was joined by his two daughters and one of his stepsons, along with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, who offered a somewhat backhanded endorsement.

“I think that John, my husband, because of his life and the road he has traveled ... has earned the right to be on this stage,” she said, adding: “I don’t think personally anyone is ever qualified enough to be president of this country, but he’s pretty close to it.”

Edwards campaigned Saturday in Wisconsin and Texas, briefly diverging from the day’s positive tone in a stop at Milwaukee’s Martin Luther King Park. “Don’t the American people deserve a commander in chief who will actually lead the world, not bully it?” Edwards asked.

There was good news for Kerry on Saturday from one of the battleground states he planned to visit before arriving in Boston. A survey conducted for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Florida Times Union newspapers gave him a slight lead over Bush in that state, 49% to 44%. With independent Ralph Nader in the race, Kerry was ahead 47% to 44%, with 3% backing Nader.

A Los Angeles Times Poll released Friday gave Bush the barest of leads in the state, 45% to 44%.

In both polls, the gap between the candidates was within the margin of error.

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Kerry said that in his acceptance speech, he planned to challenge one of the Bush campaign’s main themes: that the president’s policies have made America safer.

“Safer is not the test,” Kerry said. “The test is whether you’ve made America as safe as it can be and should be, given the options we had available to us.”

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Barabak reported from Boston, Gold from Sioux City. Times staff writers Nick Anderson, James Gerstenzang, Susannah Rosenblatt and Eric Slater contributed to this report.