Kerry to postpone decision on '08 run

Boston Globe reported 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.

Late spring is far too early for you to make a decision like that John. I recommend you wait until spring of 2009. Maybe by then we will have forgotten about the botched joke.

CQ blogged Oh, please. This is just more spin from Kerry's crew. What the incident revealed wasn't "lingering skepticism and resentment" from his incompetent campaign against Bush in 2004. Fellow Democrats hardly bother to hide both even to this day. What got the Democrats angry, except for Charles Rangel, is that it fed into the image of Democrats as elitist snobs that sneer at the military and the men and women that comprise it. He tried to pass it off as a joke about George Bush, which didn't make any sense since (a) Bush has an MBA and obviously pursued his education, (b) he got slightly better grades than John Kerry did as an undergraduate, and (c) both of them volunteered for the service.

And thanks to Rangel, the damage isn't done yet. Rangel insisted on extending the damage during his Fox News appearance last week, in which he claimed that anyone with any potential for a career wouldn't dream of enlisting in the armed forces. Democrats reacted in milder tones to Rangel's statement, probably because Rangel isn't running for president.

Besides, the entire idea of another Kerry run at the White House is its own botched joke. Kerry, who got selected in the aftermath of Howard Dean's primary meltdown because of his supposed electability, turned out to be an absolutely atrocious candidate. He never reconciled his Winter Soldier days of accusing American troops of being the equivalent of the soldiers in the army of Genghis Khan, the testimony that launched his political career. Kerry tried making Bush's Air National Guard service an issue in the campaign, and then screeched like an old woman when his own service record came under scrutiny. That he came within 4 points of Bush only demonstrated the opportunity the Democrats had to retake the White House, had they nominated someone even marginally competent at campaigning.

Kerry only postpones the immaterial in this delay. The Democratic Party wouldn't nominate him again even if he was the last Democrat in the nation. The longer he pretends otherwise, the more pathetic he becomes.