KERRY: AN ABILITY TO BRING PEOPLE AND IDEAS TOGETHER

The Boston Globe gets my vote for today's best editorial endorsing Kerry:

IN 1984, when he was still lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, John Kerry became interested in the emerging problem of acid rain. Some people mocked the idea of poisonous rain from the skies, but Kerry embarked on a fact-finding mission across Europe, where he saw the devastation of industrial pollution on the Black Forest in Germany and many historic buildings.

He took the issue to a meeting of the six New England governors and the eastern Canadian premiers, resulting in the first international agreement on acid rain controls. The pact became a blueprint for the reauthorized Clean Air Act in 1990.

In 1997, four years before Sept. 11, Kerry published "The New War," which was derived from his years leading the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. In the book, Kerry described a changed global landscape after the end of the Cold War, with security threats coming less from nation-states than from shadowy criminal groups. Although it dwelled mostly on drug cartels and the Russian mafia, "The New War" also addressed the threat of Islamic terrorism and called for international cooperation to fight it.

"We should be the natural leaders of a world coalition against crime," Kerry wrote, "but we have yet to recognize the `new crime's' scale and sophistication."

This year as a presidential candidate, Kerry has offered a plan for energy independence that is notable not just for its sweep and technical detail but because it recognizes the destabilizing effect of resource shortages in the struggle for world security.

These three examples highlight John Kerry's core strengths: an ability to see complex problems in new, often prescient, ways and a willingness to seek collaborative solutions. Far from being wavering or indecisive, Kerry's worldview has been steadfastly informed by these values for as long as we on this page have known him. In complex and dangerous times, the United States needs a leader who can bring together people and ideas. For these reasons, the Globe endorses John F. Kerry for president and John Edwards for vice president in the critical election Nov. 2.