Kerry Kicks Off Campaign in State He Once Trashed

When Sen. John Kerry officially announces his presidential candidacy today in South Carolina, he'd better hope local Democrats don't remember how he trashed the state as being unimportant to his presidential campaign earlier this year.

"Al Gore proved that you can win the election without a single Southern state, if he'd only won New Hampshire," Kerry told a group of San Francisco Democrats in March.

Now that Kerry is trailing Vermont upstart Howard Dean in both Iowa and New Hampshire, however, he's turned his eyes southward to try and burnish his credentials as a candidate of national stature.

Kerry spokeswoman Kelley Benander told Newsday on Monday, "Starting the tour in South Carolina allows Kerry to demonstrate that he is a national candidate, whose personal story and national security credentials transcend geographic lines."

Unmentioned by Benander: Kerry's newfound love for South Carolina gives the stumbling candidate a third bite at the apple, after blowing his shot in the first two presidential primary contests.

In a bid to appeal to the South's traditional respect for the military, Kerry will launch his presidential campaign in front of the decommissioned Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Yorktown near Charleston.

Still, the Massachusetts Democrat's earlier comment about not needing the South to win may leave some Carolinians wondering if Kerry is turning to them in an act of desperation.

Back in March, one-time Carter campaign aide Craig Crawford, who now writes for the Congressional Quarterly, warned that Kerry's drop-dead message could come back to haunt him.

"I don't believe candidates should ever blow their cover," he told nationally syndicated radio hosts Batchelor and Alexander. "It really allows the interpretation, which I think would be very dangerous for him, that he's going to write off the South."

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