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Today in South Carolina, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, endorsed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as the next U.S. president. Kerry proclaimed today that "Barack Obama can be, will be and should be the next president of the United States."
Kerry can't hurt
John Kerry's endorsement of Barack Obama today pretty much cancels out Billary Clinton's overhyped win of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday by no more than a few percentage points. (With the significant differences between the pre-election polls and the exit polls and the actual official election results, some are already questioning the validity of the New Hampshire vote, by the way [see this too]; just sayin'.)
It's true that Kerry isn't the most popular Democrat on the planet and that because of that fact he decided to stay out of the fray for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
But it can't hurt Barack Obama to have received the endorsement of the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate.
Kerry's endorsement of Obama, more than anything else, I suspect, will open the floodgates, will make it more acceptable for prominent Democratic figures nationwide to break rank and to endorse Obama instead of Billary Clinton, the Democratic establishment machine's choice. Kerry's endorsement of Obama, hopefully, will be the first domino in a ripple effect.
Mainstream news accounts of Kerry's endorsement of Obama have indicated that Kerry was snubbing his former running mate, John Edwards, in endorsing Obama instead of Edwards, and so-called news reporters (who, by definition, are supposed to remain objective) have indicated that Kerry's endorsement doesn't mean as much as would, oh, say, Al Gore's.
I see no evidence that Kerry was snubbing Edwards. My guess is that Kerry wanted to have a real impact on the outcome of the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, and thus he endorsed a candidate who really has a chance of winning the nomination, and let's face it, no one expects Edwards to win the nomination. Barring something unpredictable, it's going to be Obama or Billary, so it made sense for Kerry to endorse one of those two, and thank Goddess it wasn't Billary.
And Kerry's endorsement of Obama makes me feel a little less bitter toward Kerry for having conceded the stolen state of Ohio so quickly and so easily in 2004.
As far as Gore is concerned, yes, his endorsement would be sweet for any of the 2008 Democratic presidential contenders, but I have a feeling that Gore isn't going to endorse anyone in the 2008 race in order to avoid bad blood. (And Gore might still be smarting from having endorsed Howard Dean in 2004, only to watch Dean's campaign implode spectacularly...)
The endorsement of the last Democratic candidate for the White House is a boon to Obama, and hopefully it will calcify enough Democrats' backbones to just say "Oh, hell no!" to Billary.
10:49:08 PM 
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