Kerrey Decision Coming Soon

By: Chris Guy
Published On: 9/8/2007 12:34:33 AM

Lost in all the euphoria of Mark Warner's expected run for the U.S. Senate next week, is the fact that another prominent Jim Webb ally could beat him to the punch. Former Nebraska Governor and Senator Bob Kerrey has said he will run for Senate in Nebraska if Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) steps down in '08. Hagel has a press conference scheduled for Monday at 10 am. Kerrey is apparently telling people close to him that he expects Sen. Hagel to retire. He's also now in the process of moving back to Nebraska from NYC, where he serves as President of the New School University.
Of course people who've been following Sen. Webb's rise to prominence remember that Sen. Kerrey was one of the early supporters of a Webb candidacy and volunteered to serve as the campaign's National Finance Chair. If not for Bob Kerrey, we could be talking about Sen. Allen's victory at the Ames, IA presidential straw poll right now.

Some progressives are not very enthused with the prospect of a Kerrey candidacy since he's taken a hawkish stance on Iraq. But I find it interesting that he would not challenge Chuck Hagel, a prominent critic of the war. It should also be noted that Kerrey had a record in the Senate that is decidedly to the left of Nebraska's current Democratic Senator, Ben Nelson. He was one of the very few to vote against the defense of marriage act. He also led the opposition to the flag-burning amendment, which was significant because Sen. Kerrey was a veteran of the Vietnam War. And as a presidential candidate in 1992, universal health care was one of his campaign platforms.

Others Democrats mentioned as possiblities in this race are Omaha mayor Mike Fahey and '06 NE-01 candidate Scott Kleeb. I think the convential wisdom here is that Fahey would not want to challenge Kerrey. And while the netroots absolutely love Scott Kleeb, it would leave them without a credible challenger in the 1st CD next year against extreme right-wing congressman Adrian Smith.

Comments



When we really needed him (MohawkOV1D - 9/8/2007 1:24:22 AM)
He took his CAMPAIGN FUNDS and ran.

Good riddance!  We need Democrats like him like we need four more years of GWB.



And we need vengeful, purist Democrats like we need herpes (DanG - 9/8/2007 6:47:31 PM)


Anything a Dem does (MohawkOV1D - 9/9/2007 3:43:47 AM)
is OK.  Right?

Just because he's a Dem makes any spinless, selfish act OK as long as they are a Dem.

I hear to much of the opposite from the OTHER SIDE to tollerate this BS from my own.  Vengeful?  No.  But I do have a memory and a sense of right and wrong.  And Bob Kerry is a POS deserter.  HE left for GREED at a time when we needed him most. All it took was one little change in the rules about campaign funds for the RATS to jump ship!

Yet, we have people who want to welcome him back.  And we wonder why were still in Iraq, and the Democratic leadership can't/won't lead.  But thats OK, because their Dem's!  And we Dem voters are the dregs that the Republicans wouldnt have.  So much for an opposition party.

Morons!



I personally will be forever grateful to Bob Kerrey (Lowell - 9/9/2007 7:14:11 AM)
for helping convince Jim Webb to run for Senate last year, then helping him defeat George Allen by serving as his national finance chair.  Thank you Bob Kerrey!


I'm torn (KCinDC - 9/8/2007 1:49:22 AM)
I'm not sure whether an increase of one in our majority is worth the pain he'll cause if he's going to be another Lieberman. Granted, a Lieberman from Nebraska would be a little easier to take than one from Connecticut, but if Kerrey runs he's going to be all over TV all through the campaign, much more than any of our other candidates, and if he's spouting Republican talking points on Iraq (and Iran?) it's going to make things tough for all Democrats.


valid points (Chris Guy - 9/8/2007 1:54:06 AM)
but he's not nearly as high profile as Joe Lieberman. You can be pro-war and also be critical of the Bush adminstration's hanling of it. That's something Lieberman refuses to do. Even McCain was happy to see Rumsfeld go, and calls the war "horribly mismanaged."


Hagel's Announcement is Up on NE Newspapers (Ben - 9/8/2007 1:55:27 AM)
He's retiring.


If this was a Republican blog (presidentialman - 9/8/2007 1:56:01 AM)
John Warner would be a traitor, cause clearly its a sinking ship over in the Senate for them.

In this vein, Bill Bradley is a traitor, the fact that Kerrey is offering his services again now that the hand is favorable to the Democrats but clearly we need a working majority, makes mute his offences.  Sort of like a Bill Gates figure making millions on the backs of the working class for a majority of his life, then giving it all away to charity.

Plus, when Gates was running the I'm rich show, he wasn't smug about the way Bush and Cheney are.



I like Bob Kerrey (legacyofmarshall - 9/8/2007 9:59:09 AM)
I used to think that Sen. Hagel was far conservative until I heard him speak in a small group setting.  He was brutally honest, intelligent, and totally independent, fairly dissing Republicans and Democrats when appropriate; all this in front of the press when he was a potential 2008 candidate.

It would be interesting to see if Hagel endorses Bob Kerrey, or at least, doesn't endorse the Republican nominee a la Warner to North in '94.  I'm sure, however, that that is a matter of Nebraska politics, about which I know little to nothing.



Kerrey with an "e" is fine by me. (beachmom - 9/8/2007 2:04:50 PM)
It's a red state, we need more D's to have a healthier majority, and I would offer the fact that his hawkish rhetoric on Iraq is tempered when you delve into the details.  His position is not as far away from us as people think.  He said on Bill Moyers that he thinks our troops should be OFF THE STREETS, not doing patrols, but in bases.  They should only be working on counterterrorism. That is IN the Democratic plan, the only difference being we would maintain an over the horizon force in a base in the region, like Kuwait, BUT would maintain counterterrorism operations. 

He also was very, very good during the 2004 campaign helping out (in addition to helping Webb in '06).  Lieberman was worse, actually.  So in the end, I think Bob Kerrey will be a "good soldier" for the Democratic team, when push comes to shove.