Editor,s letter

The Man from Nebraska

It seems only yesterday that George Bush looked unbeatable. All the Democrats had was Paul Tsongas and cold feet. Now the yellow ribbons have come down, inflation has gone up, and there is a flurry of challengers who look instantly more charismatic and substantial than the seven dwarfs of the 1988 Democratic primaries. Nebraska's senator Robert Kerrey, the state's former governor, has one of the best resumes for getting elected, bringing a whiff of Camelot to the baby-boom generation. The barest sketch reveals why, writes contributing editor Peter J. Boyer: "forty-eight years old, good looks, decorated Vietnam War hero, amputee marathoner, self-made millionaire, glamorous bachelor (actress Debra Winger's squeeze), and proven Republican-slayer in the conservative heartland."

What's the snag? Only that in the sound-bite era of dogmatic simplicities, Kerrey is a mysterious maverick whose political depth and complexity defy encapsulation. He is even accused of changing his mind when he thinks he may have been wrong in the first place. He is an idealist but not an ideologue. He chooses to live alone rather than cozy up to the myth of a storybook marriage. Instead of Reagan nostalgia, and Bush's vision thing, Kerrey offers eloquent metaphysical insights

that have earned him the nickname "Cosmic Bob."

So who is Bob Kerrey? A flashy space cadet or a leader for a new generation? For his report on page 98, Boyer talked to Kerrey's closest war buddy, his ex-wife, and his controversial once (and future?) lover, Debra Winger. He traveled with the candidate from Nebraska to New Hampshire, from the ivied display case of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government to Hollywood's money circuit—where Kerrey has been anointed the liberal standard-bearer.

Boyer came to appreciate that the crystallizing experience of Kerrey's life was his brush with death in Vietnam. To the candidate, the moment when he seemed to stand apart from his own body was "a gift" he works endlessly to recapture. It is the "wildfire" at the center of his seeming detachment. And it gives Bob Kerrey a capacity for passion that may yet surprise and transform American politics.

Editor in chief