Mr. Kerry is a meticulous, deliberative decision maker, always demanding more information, calling around for advice, reading another document — acting, in short, as if he were still the Massachusetts prosecutor boning up for a case.
He stayed up late last Sunday night with aides at his home in Beacon Hill, rewriting — and rearguing — major passages of his latest Iraq speech, a ritual that aides say occurs even with routine remarks.
"He attacks the material, he questions things, he tries to get it right," said Richard C. Holbrooke, the former United Nations ambassador and an adviser to Mr. Kerry. During a recent conversation about Iraq, he recounted, Mr. Kerry "interrupts me and he says, `Have you read Peter Galbraith's article in The New York Review of Books? You've got to read that, it's very important."'
In interviews, associates repeatedly described Mr. Kerry as uncommonly bright, informed and curious.
But the downside to his deliberative executive style, they said, is a campaign that has often moved slowly against a swift opponent, and a candidate who has struggled to synthesize the information he sweeps up into a clear, concise case against Mr. Bush.
Even his aides concede that Mr. Kerry can be slow in taking action, bogged down in the very details he is so intent on collecting, as suggested by the fact that he never even used the Medicare information he sent his staff chasing.
His attention to detail can serve him well on big projects, as it did when he sent aides scurrying across the country to find long-lost fellow Vietnam veterans who could vouch for his war record. But sometimes, his aides say, it is a distraction, as it was in early 2003, when they say he spent four weeks mulling the design of his campaign logo, consulting associates about what font it should use and whether it should include an American flag. (It does.)
His habit of soliciting one more point of view prompted one close adviser to say he had learned to wait until the last minute before weighing in: Mr. Kerry, he said, is apt to be most influenced by the last person who has his ear. His aides rejoiced earlier this year when Mr. Kerry yielded his cellphone to an aide, a move they hoped would limit his distractions in seeking out contrary opinions.
"He considers options, synthesis, antithesis — he's a thinker," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who traveled with Mr. Kerry last week, and whose own presidential campaigns were known for their disorganization.
Still, Mr. Jackson added: "A boxer needs a manager and needs a cut manager in the corner and needs someone to handle the towels. But once the bell rings, a boxer needs his instincts."
Unlike Mr. Bush, who was a governor and a business executive before he ran for president, Mr. Kerry — who has spent the past 20 years as a legislator, with a staff of perhaps 60 — has little experience in managing any kind of large operation. Several Democrats suggested that this presidential campaign was in many ways a learning experience for him.
Mr. Kerry was described by his associates as more interested in the finer points of public policy than the mechanics of politics. Scott Maddox, the chairman of the Florida Democratic Party, said he could not recall getting a call from Mr. Kerry checking in with what was going on in that critical state.
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