amyk's Blog

2004 Dem nominee Kerry endorsing Obama

By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press

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, planned to announce his support Thursday at 11 a.m. EST at a rally at the College of Charleston, said a Democrat familiar with Kerry's decision. The 2004 nominee was to argue that Obama can best unite the country and has the potential to create transformational change, the person said.

Kerry lost the South Carolina Democratic primary in 2004 to John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who now is running third in the 2008 campaign behind Hillary Rodham Clinton and Obama.

Besides any potential help for Obama, Thursday's endorsement was a slap at Edwards, who was Kerry's running mate in the last election. The two had their differences during the campaign over strategy and spending. In post-mortem interviews, Edwards said he would have been more aggressive in challenging the unsubstantiated allegations of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the Vietnam War veterans who questioned Kerry's military record.

Kerry's endorsement also was a jab at Clinton, the New York Democrat who won the New Hampshire primary after a loss to Obama in the Iowa caucuses.

Kerry had withheld his endorsement, hoping to have an impact on the race and avoid the fate of fellow Democrat Al Gore, the 2000 nominee who endorsed Howard Dean in 2004 shortly before the former Vermont governor's campaign imploded. Gore has made no endorsement so far this year.

While Kerry has been close to Clinton's husband, the former president, he was incensed in 2006 when she chided him after Kerry suggested that people who don't go to school "get stuck in Iraq." Aides said Kerry meant to jab at Bush and say "get us stuck in Iraq," and that he didn't appreciate Clinton piling onto the criticism he was already getting for the remark.

Kerry himself had considered running for president in 2008, but that plan fizzled with the botched remark. For many Democrats, his words revived bitter memories of his missteps in 2004, when he lost to Bush.

As for Obama, Kerry gave the young Illinois state senator his first turn in the national spotlight when he chose him to deliver the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Later that year, Obama won election as a U.S. senator.

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What do you think about this endorsement?  

Does Kerry have the power to push Obama out ahead as the clear front-runner for the Dems?