AMERICA/Conor O'Clery: John Kerry came to town on Wednesday to talk to the Council for Foreign Relations about his ideas on American foreign policy.
The 6'4" senator from Massachusetts faced a well-connected audience of New York's movers and shakers.
The list of participants included media figures Tina Brown, Harold Evans, Joe Klein and Hendrik Hertzberg. Many of the Upper East Siders fawned over a lady sitting in the front row whom Kerry calls "Lovey". This was his wife, Teresa Heinz, said to be worth $500 million.
The senator gave a well-received speech, attacking George Bush for the most "arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy" in modern history and for turning the "preordained success of Iraq into a diplomatic fiasco".
As a decorated Vietnam veteran and experienced lawmaker, and as early favourite for January's first primary in New Hampshire, Kerry should be on a roll in his quest for the White House. He spoke energetically, and the audience was attentive. But his delivery was dispassionate and wooden.
The Democratic candidate seems unable to translate his private warmth into a connection with the public, or to convince listeners that his convictions are passionately held, especially when his voting record shows support for the war but opposition to funding the reconstruction. There was no sense in the crowded room on East 68th Street that we were listening to the next president of the United States.
"We're going to surprise people. I'm coming on strong," Kerry said afterwards, but next day two new polls in New Hampshire confirmed that he is falling even further behind former Vermont governor Howard Dean. A Zogby International survey showed him with only 12 per cent support against 42 per cent for Dean, and the American Research Group put him behind 13-45.
He rationalised that his campaign was "crowded out" by three things: the war; the focus on Arnold Schwarzenegger; and excitement over the entry of retired general Wesley Clark, who is currently running a close third in New Hampshire. Voters, he said, will begin to focus on him in the next eight weeks.
Kerry is putting most of his resources into Iowa, where Democrats will hold a caucus the week before New Hampshire, hoping to get a "bounce" for the primaries to come.
IT is not all plain sailing for Dean, however. He is facing legal action in Vermont for locking up a portion of his records as governor for 10 years.
Researchers looking for dirt on the frontrunner have been combing through 600,000 pages of open Vermont records in the state capital, Montpelier, but they do not have access to 145 crates of material.
The "Dean divers", as they are known, want to get their hands on sensitive material about Vermont's gay unions law and tax credits given to Dean-favoured companies.
Such scavanger hunts are not unusual. In the 1960 campaign Nixon's people tried to steal damaging medical records of John F. Kennedy, according to historian Robert Dallek.
The most notable success came during the Democratic primaries in 1988, when candidate Al Gore discovered from state files that former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis had allowed convicted murderers to get leave from prison. In a televised debate Gore scored heavily when he asked Dukakis: "If you were elected president, would you advocate a similar programme?"
After Dukakis won the Democratic nomination, his Republican opponent, George Bush snr, inquired in a TV debate what Dukakis thought he was doing giving "weekend passes to first-degree murderers". Then came the Republican TV ad showing that one prisoner, Willie Horton, had killed again after his release.
This helped sink Dukakis's campaign. Dean is resisting the demands for his documents, saying he would only unseal them when President Bush opened his records as governor of Texas.
This was a mistake. Bush was forced by court action to let people look at his documents as governor, though only after he had won the 2000 election (when they showed that his claims about Texas education reform were questionable).
Dean, who has attacked the Bush administration over excessive secrecy, was at least candid about his action after he left office in January. He did it, he told Vermont Public Radio, because "we didn't want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time."
ANOTHER credibility question has arisen for President Bush, this time over his Thanksgiving trip to Iraq. The most widely publicised photograph from the trip was of the commander-in-chief holding a large platter with a garnished turkey on it, as 600 hungry soldiers looked on expectantly. Turns out it was a weapon of mass deception. The golden-brown turkey was for decoration only.
The troops got the usual chow. The White House has also had to admit that an account of an airborne incident given by officials during the secret flight to Baghdad was untrue.
They had told reporters that a British Airways pilot, recognising Air Force One as it travelled incognito, had radioed the crew, who replied that it was a Gulfstream V, a business jet; to which the BA pilot, apparently catching on, had said simply after a long pause: "Oh!".
Bush aides now admit their pilot had no such conversation with a BA aircraft.
ANOTHER news event last week may have to be rewritten. This was of the woman who claimed she was knocked unconscious by a stampede of shoppers at the opening of a Thanksgiving Wal-Mart sale in Florida.
Patricia Vanlester (41) was "trampled by a herd of elephants", according to her sister. The incident was picked up by AP and published round the world as a shocking example of American consumer madness. Syndicated columnist George Will devoted a column to it, saying it was a long time coming in America's "cathedrals of consumption".
It turns out, however, that Ms Vanlester has a history as a victim of such incidents. According to court records, she has filed 16 previous claims of injuries to her head, back, neck, leg and arms, suffered when she slipped or fell or had something fall on her at stores and other places where she has shopped or worked.