Senator John Kerry Will Not Run in 2008

It was inevitable, but the moment I saw the news that Kerry probably won't be running, a wave of sadness hit me, partly because of what could have been in 2004, partly because it's not difficult to imagine how hard it was for Kerry to make his decision. Adam Nagourney of The New York Times has the story:

Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who narrowly lost the presidency to George Bush in 2004, stepped away today from what he had described as an almost all-but-certain second bid for the White House, bowing to a Democratic Party that was clearly unreceptive to his return to the stage and that had turned its attention to new candidates.

Mr. Kerry, who is 63, will instead seek a fifth term as senator from Massachusetts, and will focus on organizing opposition to the war in Iraq, said a Democrat familiar with Mr. Kerry’s thinking who asked not to be identified until Mr. Kerry made the decision public himself.

Mr. Kerry had turned his attention to the 2008 presidential race almost from the moment he conceded defeat to Mr. Bush in November 2004, the end of what he described as a heartbreaking day in which exit polls had projected his victory was assured.

After being daunted in the 2004 race as being equivocal on the war in Iraq, he had emerged as one of his party’s leading opponents to the war, and had renounced his original support for the war resolution that caused him so many problems in the last election.

Presidents who don't perform well usually do not get a second term. George W. Bush will forever be the most failed two-term president in American history. When a slim majority of American voters decided to place more value on the abilities of George W. Bush instead of John Kerry, it was something I will never understand. I will continue to have enormous respect for Senator Kerry.

John Kerry: In or Not?

It's not clear if John Kerry will be running for president this time around. But if he does, he has people he can still count on. Here's the story from Glenn Johnson of the Boston Globe:

Sen. Barack Obama visited Massachusetts three times last year to campaign for Deval Patrick. The husband of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, appointed Patrick to the top Justice Department civil rights post during the 1990s.

But the state's new governor says he would have to support Sen. John Kerry over Obama or Mrs. Clinton should the Massachusetts Democrat make a second run for the presidency.

"They are very, very strong people," Patrick said of his three fellow Democrats during an appearance aired Sunday on WHDH-TV's "Urban Update." "I will tell you that if my home senator runs, I've got to be with him. I love the other candidates, but we will see. I don't know that he has made a decision yet."

(snip)

Kerry has pledged to announce a decision about a second campaign in the near future, perhaps this month. He is up for re-election in 2008, and some local Democrats are urging him to decide whether he wants to seek re-election or wage a second presidential campaign.

So far, Kerry's numbers are not good for a rerun. That may spell trouble for his presidential aspirations. Another issue, mentioned in the story above, is that it may be tough to run for the Senate and run a presidential campaign at the same time (Joe Lieberman and Lloyd Benton did both as vice presidential candidates; they both retained their senate seats but lost the big race).

And two years later there's still fallout from the 2004 election as we read in the Miami Herald by Nedra Pickler of AP:

Former Democratic Party chairman and Clinton friend Terry McAuliffe is lambasting John Kerry's unsuccessful presidential campaign, calling his effort to unseat President Bush ``one of the biggest acts of political malpractice in the history of American politics.''

(snip)

Kerry spokesman David Wade said that although many people wish the 2004 election had turned out differently, Kerry is proud of the hard work of his campaign staff and McAuliffe's efforts as party chairman. ''It's time to look forward, not backwards,'' Wade said.

McAuliffe said Kerry's camp was so afraid of offending swing voters that it didn't defend his record or criticize Bush. He said Kerry's aides muzzled him from assailing Bush's military record.

He said the campaign also ordered speeches at the Democratic National Convention to be scrubbed of any mention of Bush's name or his record -- although McAuliffe privately encouraged firebrand Al Sharpton to go ahead with his attacks on the president in his crowd-pleasing speech.

''I thought the decision of the Kerry campaign to back off any real criticism of Bush was one of the biggest acts of political malpractice in the history of American politics,'' he said.

One can take McAuliffe words with a grain of salt and it's important to remember his closeness to the Clintons, which could be a factor, but most people agree that Kerry made several mistakes after leading Bush in the polls in the spring of 2004. First, after winning most of the primaries, Kerry started coasting and was slow to regain momentum. Second, like other Democrats, he sometimes listened too much to the caution of his consultants. Third, he should have responded hard to the Swiftboaters. Still, it's important to remember that Kerry won 9 million more votes than Al Gore did just four years earlier. Somehow Bush came up with an extra 12 million votes and that was the difference. In the end, one has to blame the voters for not recognizing quickly enough the incompetent currently occupying the White House. I still believe Kerry would have made an excellent president but his time may have passed.

John Kerry May Rethink 2nd Presidential Run

I like John Kerry. I voted for him and I think he would have made a fine president. But this is not a forgiving era when it comes to gaffes that Republicans can exploit and I hope the time comes soon when we put behind such nonsense. Here's a story by Rick Klein of the Boston Globe:

Senator John F. Kerry's election-eve "botched joke" about the war in Iraq -- and the fierce denunciations his comments drew from fellow Democrats -- has led him to reevaluate whether to mount a run for the presidency in 2008 and has led him to delay an announcement about his decision, according to Kerry associates.

The Massachusetts Democrat is now leaning toward waiting until late spring before declaring his intentions, even as other candidates jump into the race and begin building organizing and fund-raising teams in early-primary states. Before the joke derailed his comeback, Kerry had signaled that he would decide whether to run by the end of January.

Kerry -- who had methodically resurrected his political standing after a tough loss to President Bush in 2004 -- was stunned by the swift, angry reaction to his Oct. 30 statement that underachieving students would end up "stuck in Iraq." Aides and friends say the senator was particularly stung by the fact that so many Democrats had joined Republicans in rebuking him.

I'm irritated with the Democrats who attacked Kerry. Kerry was being attacked in the media for three days for 20 seconds of a botched joke while the president has frequently gotten a free pass (sometimes by the same Democrats) for botching a war for over a 3 1/2 years. Kerry was easy to defend. Even a mild joke at Kerry's expense could have made the point that the focus should have been on Bush as the voters so eloquently expressed on Nov. 7th.

I admire Kerry but, having said what I said above, I believe he might be able to do more good in the Senate where he can bring all his skills to bear on holding Bush's feet to the fire for the remainder of his presidency. Our nation can't afford to drift for two more years; and if Bush won't mend his ways, we need a Congress that's paying close attention to business. There's no question in my mind that John Kerry still has important things to do; instead of running for president again, his place and his greatest value for now may be in the Senate.

Kerry Pays Price for Verbal Gaffe

According to Survey USA, it looks like that verbal gaffe last month caused a negative reaction in Kerry's Massachussets poll rating. Senator Kerry now has a 50% disapproval rating and only a 48% approval rating. Those could be his worst numbers ever. He has his work cut out for him and will have to mend some fences with Massachussets voters, and perhaps national voters as well if he's still serious about running for president.

I like John Kerry but he needs to work on why he gets wonkish or tongue-tied at times.