Posted on 11/09/2004 10:47:20 AM PST by presidio9
Defeated Democrat John Kerry has dropped hints he may run for president in 2008, as glum party officials debated the way forward after last week's Republican sweep of elections for the White House and US Congress.
"Sometimes God tests you," an aide to the Massachusetts senator quoted Kerry as telling friends and supporters, the Washington Post reported. "I'm a fighter and I've come back before."
Kerry's younger brother Cameron told the Boston Globe newspaper the senator was "profoundly disappointed" about narrowly losing last week's election to President George W. Bush (news - web sites), and deems another attempt fully possible.
"That's conceivable," the paper quoted the brother as saying. "I don't know why that (last week's loss) should necessarily be it.
"I think it's too early to assess. But I think that he is going to continue to fight on for the values, ideals and issues this campaign is about," Cameron Kerry added.
Kerry's role in the party became the subject of intense speculation, as Democrats try to chart their future following last week's demoralizing losses at the polls.
A Kerry aide told AFP that the nearly two-year-long presidential campaign made the Massachusetts senator the de facto leader of Democrats, and he would play an active role in opposing the Republican-led Congress and White House.
"He is not he is not going to go away quietly," said Josh Gottheimer, a speech writer for the campaign.
"He plans to continue to carry the mantle" for Democrats into the future, said Gottheimer. "He will be at the forefront of the party in the months and years ahead."
The debate about Kerry's future comes as Democrats planned meetings around the US capital Tuesday to deliberate about the future of the party.
Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives were holding a day long strategy meeting, while top officials with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, a network of top, elected Democrats, planned a open forum to discuss the way forward.
Kerry seemed to make the case for continuing his role as de facto party chieftain, issuing a statement last week touting the inroads made by his campaign.
"Kerry's popular vote total in aggregate numbers not only exceeds (2000 Democratic presidential candidate) Al Gore (news - web sites)'s popular vote victory in the last election, but also (ex-President) Bill Clinton (news - web sites)'s in the 90's" the statement said,
"John Kerry has built a solid foundation for the Democratic party to build on -- in voters, in resources and in substance. The party would be well advised to build on the foundation and not turn our back on it."
According to press reports, Kerry has mostly remained at his Boston, Massachusetts home since his defeat. The Globe reported that he was spotted in Washington on Monday, but kept a low profile. According to news reports, Kerry is considering creating a political action committee and think tank to keep his policy initiatives, and himself, in the spotlight.
"He's in a position of national leadership," Cameron Kerry told the Boston Globe.
"He's going to exercise that role and be a voice for the 55 million people who voted for him. The position he's in gives him a bully pulpit."
Some Democrats however seemed less inclined to consider Kerry the head of their party, or at the top of the 2008 presidential ticket.
Louisiana's US Senator John Breaux told US television this week that top Democratic White House contenders appear to be party luminaries like Senator Hillary Clinton (news - web sites) and Indiana Senator Evan Bayh.
"Either one of those who can articulate a moderate, mainstream message can be successful," he said.
Breaux, who is retiring from the US Senate this year, said the party would be well advised to try to duplicate the charisma and centrist message of former President Clinton (news - web sites).
"When he won, he was able to keep the party base, which is a tradition of minorities and labor, but he was also able to expand it into moderate, mainstream individuals," Breaux told CNN television Monday, hinting that Kerry lacked the pizzazz to appeal to a broad-based public.
"You have to have the right message, but you also have to be able to deliver it," he said.
If I heard Rush correctly, Gore is also looking at a 2008 run. The primary debates would be a hoot!
Kerry should run as Hillary's Veep!
Now there's a dream ticket!!
Bwaaahahaha!!
dung.
GOOD GOD MAN, could you imagine those two voices at the same time?
I can recall being quite angry at him for 1) going back on the "No New Taxes" pledge, and 2) allowing Clinton to denounce the Reagan Era.
It was as if Bush was trying to separate himself from Reagan, and in the process I think he lost quite a few people. Most of those people went to Perot, but some of them stayed home, and some (gasp) even voted for Clinton.
"Narrowly losing"?!!
Nearly 4 million votes, but heck, who's counting?
Potential slogans:
We can't lose three in row!
The third time is the charm!
Two losers can be a winner!
I'm torn - should I be happy that the 'rats are making a stupid mistake and considering renominating a loser who fails to inpire confidence as commander-in-chief? Or should I be despondent that half our country is so clueless and out of touch with what issues we're really facing in this country and what kind of men we need to lead us? Because if it is the latter... I'm really worried.
We need to be a country that looks for stong, optimistic leaders who embrace the moral heritage of this country. It is our strong moral base, coupled with our religious, social and economic freedoms that gives us our strength. Tolerance and diversity do not mean an absence of commonly shared public morality.
The Dems fail to see that, and I'm just so afraid that eventually these miltant leftist-secularist (and essentially anti-American) forces will tip the balance and then... I can't fathom it.
Please join me in praying for our country.
Even the Dims who voted for him will soonsee himin the real light - not good for him or them, so I say, go for it...
Get over it Brother Cameron your haughty, arrogant despicable sibling lost big time, not narrowly.
Typical of the Dem view of things by most liberal leftists!
PARSE, PARSE, IGNORE, IGNORE, DENY, DENY out the wazoo.
Bring it ON!!!
In fairness to the Rats, they have not renominated anyone. Right now this is just the delusion of a person so out of touch that he based a Presidential candidacy on a war record that lasts for 4 months 40 years ago.
Neither Walter Mondale nor Michael Dukakis were that stupid.
I would hardly call a 3.5 million vote difference, a close election.
If RATs were glum before Kerry opened his big mouth about maybe running again, the mind boggles about how they feel now. You can't make this stuff up.
Kerry's younger brother Cameron told the Boston Globe newspaper the senator was "profoundly disappointed" about narrowly losing last week's election to President George W. Bush <---Narrowly my a$$. What a maroon.
Planning to dig up more dead people, ya' know.
I agree. As Kerry knows, losing sucks. Why would he want to be a 2-time loser?
Would that Cameron Kerry who urges his brother's renomination for president be the same one who broke into John Kerry's opponent's headquarters in 1972?
September 18, 1972 -- John Kerry's brother Cameron and
Vietnam veteran Thomas Vallely are arrested in Lowell,
Massachusetts in the basement of a building that houses
both Kerry's campaign headquarters and those of opposing
candidate Tony DiFruscia. Cameron Kerry and Vallely are
charged with breaking and entering with the intent to
commit larceny. Kerry will win the Democratic nomination
for a Massachusetts congressional seat the next day, but
lose in the general election to Republican Paul Cronin.
Thomas Vallely will later become director of the Vietnam
Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University.
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