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John Kerry entered the race to run for lieutenant governor in 1982 and won the Democratic primaries. At the same time Micheal Dukakis beat King the incumbent for governor in the primaries.
With the hotly contested Democratic primaries behind them, Dukakis and Kerry faced a cakewalk against over matched Republican candidates in the general election. The Dukakis team considered Kerry an asset and featured him in campaign advertising. One brochure show them walking and talking, suit coats slung over their shoulders: "Mike Dukakis/John Kerry.......Democrats of the future." With Kerry in lower berth of the ticket, Dukakis crushed the GOP ticket of John W. Sears and Leon J. Lombardi.
As lieutenant governor Kerry threw himself into his work and the excitement of returning, to public life. When he took the oath in Jan., he stepped into a job to serve as acting chief executive in absence of the governor and to chair meetings of the the Executive Council, a vestige of colonial government primarily charged with confirming or rejecting judicial nominations.
But Dukakis delegated other tasks to Kerry, who seized the opportunity. Not only would Kerry's office be the liaison to federal government, a role O'Neill assumed, but also quarterback the administration's anti-crime agenda.
Kerry's public schedule was a blur of activity - travel to conferences, endless political and ceremonial appearances, fund raisers, and meetings. But it provided Kerry with an opportunity to establish a statewide presence, to create the political infrastructure he lacked, and he took advantage of it. And his office's federal relations duties, monitoring budget, grant applications, and regulatory issues gave Kerry a direct line to Washington, his first choice for political office.
In Feb. 1983, when Dukakis assembled his Anti-Crime Council, he named himself chair, regulating Kerry to vice chair. Kerry played a important role, taking the lead crafting a computer crimes bill and pushing for a state racketeering law and victim - witness assistance program.
The state legislature took up a bill in April of 1983 to repeal a death penalty statue that had been approved by the voters the previous fall and signed into law by King before he left office, Dukakis sent Kerry to testify against capital punishment. "We do not believe government should be in the business of killing people. It cheapens life and demeans us all," Kerry told a legislative committee. About eighteen months later, the state's highest court struck down the the law.
The Dukakis team considered Kerry a loyal team player. A university professor today, Dukakis calls himself "a fan" of Kerry. "We had a great working relationship," Dukakis said.
John Sasso, who was Dukakis's chief of staff, said he "never had to worry that Kerry was trying to upstage Mike. He couldn't have been more loyal."
The office was inundated with requests for small favors and Kerry's presence - at bar mitzuahs, Boy Scout installations, youth sports banquets. Kerry's office files, now at the Massachusetts Archives, are filled with the back and forth correspondence that reflects the everyday life of a politician. A lawyer in South Hadley wrote in Aug. 1983 to thank Kerry and his staff for "in clearing up the liquor license transfer to allow our client to open as scheduled."
Despite the sometimes mundane schedule, Kerry managed in 1983 to emerge as a national political figure in the fight against acid rain, the industrial pollutant that was killing off lakes and streams, weakening forests, pockmarking monuments and buildings, causing ailments in people. During Kerry's first year as lieutenant governor, his schedules show at least twenty three trips out of state on official business, eleven of them related to acid rain.
Kerry's efforts culminated in a Feb.1984 resolution of the National Governors Association calling for its cuts in sulfur dioxide emissions that were polluting waterways in the Northeast. The resolution was a public relations coup and later would prove an important step toward enactment of the federal 1990 Clean Air Act amendments.
On Jan 12, 1984 one year into his four year term as lieutenant governor, Kerry was in Germany's Black Forest on an acid rain fact finding trip when he received stunning news of an announcement that would be be made later that day back in Boston: Illness was forcing forty two year old Paul E. Tsongas to retire from his U.S. Senate seat just after one term. "I was woken at three in the morning and told Paul Tsongas was not running," Kerry recalled. A incredible opportunity was at hand. "But it was tricky", he added. "I was concerned that it would be viewed as not having learned the lessons of 1972 and that it was premature. One year into the Lieutenant governor office, to stand up and say, hey I think I should be senator. You know, it was ballsy," Kerry said. But Kerry added "it was right place for me in the terms of the things that were my passions. The issues of war and peace was on the table again." Two weeks later Kerry jumped in the race.
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