Kerry to back Obama for president
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (Yahoo News) - Barack Obama has won the presidential endorsement of Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' 2004 nominee who lost to George W. Bush.
Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, plans to announce his support Thursday at a rally at the College of Charleston, said a Democrat familiar with Kerry's decision. The 2004 nominee will argue that Obama can best unite the country and has the potential to create transformational change, the person said.
Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, plans to announce his support Thursday at a rally at the College of Charleston, said a Democrat familiar with Kerry's decision. The 2004 nominee will argue that Obama can best unite the country and has the potential to create transformational change, the person said.
posted by BP News Bureau | 9:41 AM
2 Comments:
From Captain's Quarters:
This seems strange on a couple of different levels. Kerry hardly ran as the insurgent candidate in 2004; that was Howard Dean. Kerry represents the Establishment in the Democratic Party, a quasi-Brahmin who has remained in the Senate largely through the offices of Ted Kennedy instead of any legislative accomplishments of his own. The man who authored six whole bills in twenty years hardly qualifies to speak about transformational change. What has he ever done to affect it himself?
Kerry seems a much better fit for the Clinton team. They're both Establishment, and both equally accomplished in Congress. He's somewhat more liberal than Hillary, but his platform on the Iraq war in 2004 comes closer to her position than Obama's. Hillary campaigned for him in 2004 with much more effect than Obama did, even if she didn't seem terribly enthusiastic about it at the time.
And why announce this in South Carolina, of all places? Wouldn't this have helped more three days ago in Manchester, New Hampshire? If Kerry had done it there and then, it would have had much more influence on his neighboring state than a Yankee coming to Charleston. This seems like vintage Kerry -- a day late and a dollar short.
Barack Obama may appreciate the sentiment, but he's not likely to get much of a boost from this endorsement. Considering the stink still coming from his 2004 campaign, it's more likely to repel voters than to attract them.
From National Review Online:
We shouldn't be shocked by John Kerry's endorsement of Barack Obama, and I don't think it carries that much weight.
But it's not like we couldn't see this coming...
"The call for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to apologize to U.S. troops for his "stuck in Iraq" comment reached across the aisle to his own party Wednesday — including one Democrat who called the remark "stupid" — as the embattled senator went into self-imposed exile in hopes of minimizing any political damage days before voters go to the polls.
"I think we have to look forward here we don't need to be refighting the 2004 election as much as President Bush would like that to happen," (Hillary) Clinton told reporters at an event for military families in New York. "What Senator Kerry said was inappropriate and I believe we can't let it divert us from looking at the issues that are at stake in our country.""
And as for John Edwards, well... Kerry's not a big fan of his former running mate.
"Kerry also wanted a specific reassurance. He asked Edwards for a commitment that if he was chosen and the ticket lost, Edwards wouldn't run against him in 2008. Edwards agreed "absolutely," as Kerry recalled him saying. If Kerry had shared this at the time, I would have told him what I did later: it was naive to think he could rely on a promise like that. Unlike Joe Lieberman, who'd been plucked from relative obscurity by Gore, Edwards had made his own mark in the primaries. He was ambitious—and if he saw his chance the next time, he was likely to go for it.
On the day the Edwards pick was made public, Edwards and I talked for the first time since I had informed him of our decision to work for Kerry and he had reacted angrily. He said he knew I'd helped get him on the ticket and he was grateful. I told him that I welcomed the possibility that we might be friends again, but that wasn't the reason for my preference. I believed it was the right move for Kerry. Kerry's relationship with Edwards would sour after the election—and mine would simply fade away. When Elizabeth discovered she had breast cancer, John and Teresa reached out to help the Edwardses find the best doctors they could. Marylouise and I called—but afterward, never heard from John again. Maybe we shouldn't have expected to. Kerry told me that the Edwardses simply stopped returning calls or talking to him and Teresa. Within months, Edwards started preparing for a bid in 2008. Kerry said that he wished he'd never picked Edwards, that he should have gone with his gut."
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