John Kerry biography
Date of birth : 1943-12-11
Date of death : -
Birthplace : Aurora, Colorado
Nationality : American
Category : Politics
Last modified : 2010-12-11
Credited as : U.S politician, senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, navy veteran
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John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He became the senior Senator from Massachusetts after the 2009 death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost by 34 electoral votes to President George W. Bush. Senator Kerry is a decorated Vietnam veteran, and was a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War when he returned home from service. Before entering the Senate, he served as an Assistant District Attorney and Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts under Michael Dukakis, who ran for President in 1988.
Entering politics in his home state of Massachusetts, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1972. After graduating from law school, he served as an assistant district attorney (1977-82) before becoming lieutenant governor of Massachusetts (1983-85). In 1984, Kerry was elected to the U.S. Senate and since has been reelected four times. He chaired the Senate committee on small business from 2001 to 2003, and with Senator John McCain was instrumental in the the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo of Vietnam in the 1990s. An early favorite for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, he was eclipsed by Howard Dean in the months leading up to the caucuses and primaries. However, Kerry quickly emerged as the frontrunner once the voting began, securing enough delegates for the nomination by mid-March, and he subsequently chose North Carolina senator John Edwards as his running mate. After the most expensive campaign in U.S. history, the Democratic ticket lost to the incumbents, President G. W. Bush and Vice President Cheney, in the Nov., 2004, election. Kerry has chaired the Senate small business and entrepreneurship (2007-9) and foreign relations (2009-) committees.
