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John Kerry Thinking 'Hard' About Hillary Challenge
Sen. John Kerry said Thursday that he's thinking "hard" about making a second run for the White House, a move that would pit him against presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. "I will make that decision toward the end of the year, but I'm thinking about it hard," Kerry told the Latin Economic Forum at the United Nations, joking that if he can pick up the 60,000 votes in Ohio that cost him the 2004 election, he'd have the race sewn up. Most observers say the Massachusetts Democrat doesn't have a chance at stealing the nomination away from Mrs. Clinton - who has 43 percent support among party faithful to Kerry's meager 10 percent, and a fundraising juggernaut that is hellbent on pricing all challengers out of the race. The failed 2004 presidential candidate, however, has a plan to defeat Hillary, which almost no one noticed when he unveiled it two weeks ago.
Story Continues Below That's because Kerry couched his Operation Hillary strategy as a call for complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq starting on May 15. No longer is he a candidate stuck defending his record of voting for the war before he voted against it. Now he's a John Murtha Democrat - a former war hawk turned sour on the Iraq liberation by Bush administration bungling. Kerry knew the White House would never take his advice on Iraq. But that wasn't his intended audience. Instead he's hoping his party's anti-war base - a group that is growing increasingly disaffected with Mrs. Clinton - was paying close attention. A succession of polls on the Daily Kos, the most influential web site among Democrats, shows Hillary's support dropping like a rock. Meanwhile, Bush critics like Russ Feingold - who voted against the war that Hillary still supports - are surging. Kerry - a sometimes Kos blogger - has taken notice, and has adjusted his rhetoric accordingly. Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, is locked in on the war. As the first would-be female commander in chief, she dare not run as an anti-war peace candidate - a position that would raise all the old stereotypical questions about whether a woman would be strong enough to protect national security. Kerry's Vietnam service, on the other hand, inoculates him on defense issues - at least among Democrats. He's now the peace candidate who got that way by learning the costs of combat up close and personal. Whether Kerry's gambit with work is anybody's guess. But a measure of how effective his new strategy will be should come during the first primary debate - when Kerry reiterates his by then two-year-old opposition to the war and demands that Hillary explain her war support before a room full of Bush-hating Democrats.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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