No White House Run For Kerry
After months of consideration, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said Friday he will skip the 2000 presidential race.
At a news conference, the three-term Democratic senator cited fund-raising concerns and party unity as major factors in his decision not to run.
"I have concluded that to raise the necessary amount of money with only 10 months to do so, compounded by the newly accelerated primary schedule, is simply impossible at this time," he said.
Kerry also said that pulling out of the race could help Vice President Al Gore win the Democratic nomination and "may be more helpful to our party's efforts to win in November."
Initially, Kerry had strongly considered challenging Gore, the Democratic front-runner, hoping to push for better early childhood education and health care programs.
At the same time, he complained about the burden of organizing and raising more than $20 million, especially since the campaign period has already been shortened by President Clinton's impeachment trial.
Gore's only announced competitor to date is former Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey, but Kerry's decision is expected to prompt renewed consideration of the race by others, including Jesse Jackson.
"Other than Jesse Jackson, who could play a spoiler role and be an uncomfortable opponent for Al Gore, I think we have the field. This is a two-person field," said Washington political consultant Stuart Rothenberg.
He speculated that Kerry may have been scared off by the apparent futility of a campaign against an incumbent vice president.
"I think the benefit to John Kerry of getting his name out would have been offset by getting defeated," Rothenberg said. "Somebody like John Kerry is not going to go on a fool's errand. He has too much at stake. Bradley has already cast himself as a political outsider; he has already left the institution."
Kerry, 55, gained national prominence in the 1970s, when he returned from Vietnam as a decorated Navy veteran and promptly announced his opposition to the war. He co-founded Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and then made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1972.
After working as a county prosecutor and being elected lieutenant governor in Massachusetts, he won the Senate seat vacated by the late Paul Tsongas in 1984.
Kerry's most recent re-election campaign became a nationally watched contest, as he squared off with former Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld. It was considered a match of equals, with two Ivy League-educated lawyers who were both capable of raising millions of dollars.
In the end, Kerry bested Weld by a surprisingly large margin, 52 percent to 45 percent, which immediately touched off speculation about his political aspirations.
Kerry, however, is still saddled with about $500,000 in debt from the 1996 campaign, and as he talked to Democratic donors and organizers about a presidential rac, he found that many of them were already committed to Gore.
Kerry is married to Teresa Heinz, the multimillionaire widow of Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., but he said last year that he was reluctant to use personal funds to finance a campaign.
Since the end of the impeachment trial, Kerry has traveled coast to coast and re-evaluated the campaign. He concluded that while he might have done well in neighboring New Hampshire, the decision by California to move its presidential primary from June to March 2000, when New York already holds it own election, would have required too much upfront cash for political ads.
Two other prominent Democrats, Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri, decided earlier this year against campaigning for the presidential nomination.