Purple Hearts, was commanding a gunboat in theMekong Delta while Rappaport was learning hismultiplication tables.
Rappaport's tactics have earned him the scornof much of the political establishment--bothpartisan and not. What worked wonders againstKerry's ex-boss in the 1988 presidentialrace--just recall the Willie Horton and theAmerican flag television commercials--has failedmiserably in defeating the one-term senator.
"These are techniques that come out of theRepublican national committee," said Hale Championof Harvard's Kennedy School of Government."They're generic--they get used all over thecountry."
ALTHOUGH RAPPAPORT seemed to be shootinghimself in the foot politically every time heattacked Kerry in the past few weeks, theDemocratic senator refused to take Rappaport'sbarrage lying down.
Instead Kerry has fought back: He has pointedto state subsidies Rappaport received on hisVermont farm, payments earmarked for poor farmers.He has raised the subject of Rappaport's refusalto disclose his past five year's income taxreturns.
He has brought up his opponent's shadyfinancial dealings in Hawaii, Vermont andMassachusetts. And he has disclosed that Rappaporthas taken PAC money from the gun lobby (Kerry isone of three senators who refuse to accept PACdonations).
"I think he's paying, somewhat, the price ofthe negative campaign he has run," the KennedySchool's Martin Linksy said of Rappaport.
So as Rappaport heads into the tomorrow'selection, he looks less and less like the goldenboy the Republican administration had hoped hewould be. Despite all the negative campaigns,Kerry appears unassailable.
The Democrat has picked up the endorsement ofalmost every major news organization in the state,putting Rappaport staffers in an uncomfortableposition.
"We don't compile that information," explainedRappaport spokesperson Robert Garrity, when askedfor a list of endorsers. "We feel the election ismore about people than about interest groups," hesaid quickly.
The will of the people, of course, is what anyelection comes down to in the end, and that's whyRappaport has been forced to forsake his filetmignon and press the flesh.
Experts, of course, can be wrong, and everycandidate knows it. But as of today, everyindication shows that the techniques Rappaport haschosen were just not suited to the campaign he wasrunning.
"It's one of the great Reagan things,"explained Champion. "Just kind of a Reader'sDigest view of America."