Kerry Tackles Dean in a Backyard Battle

ROCHESTER, N.H. —  It was never supposed to be this hard for John F. Kerry, whose Yankee roots go back more than three centuries.

New Hampshire is his backyard, and the primary here was supposed to be little more than a formality, a steppingstone en route to the Democratic presidential nomination and, ultimately, the White House.

But then Howard Dean, a neighbor from Vermont, outflanked Kerry with his opposition to the war in Iraq, and out-hustled the Massachusetts senator by practically moving to New Hampshire two years ago and campaigning nonstop.

And so Kerry, facing elimination from the nominating fight, has narrowed his political orbit to just two states, Iowa and New Hampshire, which start the presidential voting next month. A second-place Iowa finish would probably be enough to keep Kerry’s hopes alive. A strong third might even do.

But here, nothing short of victory is likely to suffice, which lends a particular urgency to Kerry’s headlong, 14-hour days as he fights to whittle Dean’s sizable lead in polls.

He has mortgaged his mansion on Boston’s Beacon Hill to pour an additional $6.4 million into his campaign. (Kerry traces his lineage to the city’s founders.) He has significantly boosted his TV advertising in Iowa and New Hampshire, launching a spot here Monday that features the state’s popular ex-governor, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, taking a dig at Dean.

Over the weekend, Kerry escalated his assault on Dean with a stinging speech that blasted the former Vermont governor as dangerously naive on defense and foreign policy and a likely disaster if Democrats make him their nominee.

But the biggest difference is Kerry’s transformation as a campaigner. He chases votes with a hunger absent those many months ago when his campaign seemed swollen with expectation and a sense of entitlement.

The famously reserved Kerry is opening himself up, almost plaintively so, as he urges voters to prod and pick him over.

“I want you to get into my heart,” he tells crowds, inviting their questions and promising to stay as long as it takes to answer every one. “I want you to get into my gut. I want you to know what makes me tick.”

There is a formula now: “chili feeds,” which Kerry is playing host to across the state, drawing respectable crowds of 150 or more at each stop. There were five last weekend: Kerry has done 15 so far.

He stands at the front of the room before a large American flag, shirt-sleeves rolled up, making small talk as he ladles out each bowl. Then a stump speech, pared to a comparatively lean 20 or so minutes. Gone is much of the high-flown Senate-speak. He vilifies Bush. He knocks Dean. He stabs a long, bony finger in the air to make a point. He invites questions.

Invariably, the war in Iraq comes up. It is the reason, Kerry says, he finds himself where he is today.

“It’s a very divisive issue,” the candidate says in an interview aboard his red, white and blue campaign bus. “A lot of people are torn apart over it, and it’s created a lot of questions.”

In response, Kerry has grown more pointed and less defensive about his congressional vote for the war. He told audiences over the weekend: Saddam Hussein posed a danger and had to be removed. There was a right way and a wrong way to do it. Bush chose the wrong way and Kerry, working with U.S. allies, would have done it the right way. If you don’t believe that, Kerry concluded, “don’t vote for me.”

His blunt response won a healthy round of applause, helped along by the busload of supporters who rode with Kerry last weekend from stop to stop. One portable booster was Ned Helms, a public health expert, who signed up with Kerry last winter and who wishes Kerry had started his chili-and-chat sessions a long time ago.

“Dean’s been able to capture the fire” that stokes Democratic activists who loathe Bush, Helms said. But anger alone won’t ensure victory, he went on, and Kerry has the stature and experience that Dean lacks.

“Kerry’s now doing what he needs to,” Helms said. “Getting in front of as many people as possible and letting them hear him and let them see him.”

Not surprisingly, there is an awkward moment or two that comes with all this earnest accessibility.

In Manchester, a young man with long sideburns proposed legislation that would require two adults to ride on every school bus in America. The Democratic front-runner has ignored phone calls and letters advocating the idea, the young man said. “You’ve obviously just given me a great opportunity to trump Howard Dean,” Kerry replied, to a big laugh. But to be honest, he said, overseeing school bus staffing is a bit of a reach for the president of the United States.

The young man persisted, asking a follow-up question about the need to provide antibacterial kneepads to paramedics. Kerry allowed that was a new issue for him and promised to give it some thought.

Other questions on the chili circuit tended toward the more garden-variety: health care, trade, taxes, AIDS, education.

Four years ago, facing a surprise threat from fellow Democrat Bill Bradley, Vice President Al Gore rallied by staging a series of marathon town hall meetings, sticking around to answer questions even after the janitors had finished cleaning up. Kerry was at Gore’s side in New Hampshire, and apparently learned something.

At one point Saturday night, at the Elks Lodge in Rochester, Kerry conspicuously checked his watch. He had been talking for close to an hour. His wife, Teresa, was pacing at the back of the room. Aides were shifting in their seats, eager to start the bus ride home. “My staff is working on me overtime here,” Kerry told the crowd.

Three more hands went up. Three more questions. Kerry answered them all, then posed for pictures and signed autographs for another half hour before boarding the bus back to the Manchester Holiday Inn.