Presidential candidate flies into Erie, lands support

By Jule Gardner
jule.gardner@timesnews.com


Call her "Front Row Norma."

That's where Norma Herbstritt, 76, was when then-U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy came through town in 1960, and it's where she was again, 44 years later, when Sen. John Kerry grabbed her hand and hugged her before greeting hundreds of others.

"He's more personable in person," said Herbstritt, of West 25th Street, beaming and touching her cheek where the man she says will be the next president of the United States kissed her.

The Kerry rally Monday night drew 800 to 1,000 of the Democratic faithful to a hangar operated by North Coast Air. They spilled out a doorway and clung to a fence, trying to get a glimpse of their presumptive candidate in his first swing through northwest Pennsylvania.

more: http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040511/FRONTPAGE/105110462