WATERLOO, Iowa – Only days after President Trump walked the country to the brink of war and back, John Kerry rolled into this small riverfront city in a motor coach emblazoned with the words “Battle for the Soul of the Nation.”
The campaign bus and slogan belong to Kerry’s longtime Washington colleague and friend, former vice president Joe Biden, who’s seeking the same prize Kerry secured in frigid Iowa 16 winters ago — a caucus win to propel him to the Democratic presidential nomination.
But Biden wasn’t on board.
Kerry was the headliner of a band of lesser-known politicians barnstorming in his stead before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses. It was an unusual ride for a former Secretary of State who came within some 120,000 votes in Ohio of winning the presidency: campaigning for — but not with — a candidate.
Seated in a cramped space in the back of the motor coach that was decked out with a horseshoe sectional and a miniature flat screen, Kerry said he was motivated to launch his own second act in Iowa as a campaign surrogate because Trump’s actions have shattered world diplomacy and increased the threat of nuclear proliferation.
"It is just unforgivable to sit on the sidelines,” he said.
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