John Kerry's Night to Relish, but Not Rest on, His Laurels

Kerry supporters give their candidate a rousing welcome last night after his victories in nine of 10 states. (Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)

CNN had just flashed that Sen. John Edwards was about to drop out, making Sen. John Kerry the Democratic choice. Next this scene should have unfolded: Kerry's staff erupts in cheers, the Moet is uncorked; in the back of their minds they imagine the weekend ahead, a time to relax a bit and relish the victory.

But that is not what transpired in the makeshift boiler room at the Old Post Office Pavilion last night, where the candidate's staff had gathered to pore over the Super Tuesday election results -- Kerry had won in nine of 10 states, losing to Howard Dean on his home turf of Vermont.

"Well, I guess we took 10 minutes to enjoy the magical mystery tour we've been on," said senior adviser Michael Meehan. "A few minutes to congratulate each other on the returns. But there's no time to relax. The fight begins immediately."

In the morning, Kerry and his campaign staff will wake up to the first of $150 million worth of Republican offensives, including "positive message" from President Bush, in Spanish and English. The next installment of "Kerry Unprincipled," brought to you by the Bush campaign, will land in 6 million e-mail in-boxes worldwide. Vice President Cheney is set to do another round of talk shows about Kerry's voting record on defense.

So the spoils of victory are spare:

A few moments of his daughter Vanessa twirling in her flapper skirt, talking on her cell phone, just before the victory speech, telling reporters that "he's real excited, but he's really focused even on a night like tonight." The staff meeting for drinks after the victory party at the Front Page in Dupont Circle. Campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill celebrating with her sister.

Tomorrow she'll crack the whip all over again, bright and early.

"Right away," says Cahill, meaning the usual 7:30 a.m. meeting of senior advisers at central headquarters, then 8:30 with the whole staff, hangover or no hangover. "There really isn't time to relax."

As for Kerry, his real break lasted the whole of about an hour, time for him to go home to O Street in Georgetown, change from a pink tie to a blue one, and eat dinner with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. It's no small thing. "That hasn't happened in a very, very long time," says his spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter. "He and Mrs. Heinz Kerry at home having dinner on the same night makes a very unusual day."

His "nice conversation" with President Bush last evening was less a respite than something like the moment boxers touch gloves, the last show of formal civility before the fight begins: "He called to congratulate me," said Kerry. "I said I hoped we would have a great debate about the issues before the country."

After his bow to opponents Edwards and Dean, Kerry's victory speech last night was like any other stump speech he's given, no lighter or giddier, stopped only rarely by a smile that looks more like he's exercising his facial muscles. He described his campaign staff morosely as people who've "bled together and fought together" as if they were his other band of brothers. He trudged ahead with the same hits on Bush he was making a week ago, in the same tone: divider not a uniter, tax cuts for the wealthy, reckless foreign policy.

Of the many unfortunate consequences of this year's compressed Democratic primary schedule, this is perhaps the cruelest. Yes, the Democrats get to home in on their man early, but then so do the Republicans. That means the attacks can start even before he's off the ground. That puts Kerry in the position of that kid everyone pitied in college, the one who starts his new job one day after graduation.

Kerry woke up at dawn, as usual, on Super Tuesday. After a rushed campaign event in Georgia, he flew back to Washington to vote on two gun-control amendments. The Democratic leadership had asked him and Edwards to come, since the Senate votes were so close. And although it scrambled his schedule and took him off campaigning for a day, it turned out to be an accidental lull, perhaps the last he will have this year.

Kerry made a speech, cast his votes, hung out on the Senate floor, palling around with his old friends, patting them on the shoulder, hugging. He spent the afternoon in his hideaway office, away from the media. His colleagues welcomed him home like a long-lost friend.

"We were chitchatting," said Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who normally is grilling Kerry on campaign strategy but yesterday made small talk on the floor.

"We talked about his wife, my wife, the kids," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). "What his kids are doing, what my kids are doing. It was personal, we were just joking around with each other. It's just like after one of your colleagues is out a long time sick and then comes back. It's good to see them again."

By about 5 p.m. the numbers looked good for Kerry. He was winning by large margins in most states, and ahead in Georgia, the one place his campaign had worried about. Here the celebrations should have started.

But the White House had dispatched Dick Cheney preemptively to TV studios to light into Kerry's defense record. "He very clearly has over the years adopted a series of positions that indicate a desire to cut the defense budget, cut the intelligence budget, to eliminate many major weapons programs," the vice president said.

This morning Kerry was scheduled to fly to Orlando to resume campaigning. Last night, for the first time in a long time, he slept at home.