Kerry intends to stay out of race in 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democrats' losing presidential candidate in 2004, does not intend to run again in 2008, a Democratic official said Wednesday. <br/><br/>This

Wednesday, January 24th 2007, 2:06 pm

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democrats' losing presidential candidate in 2004, does not intend to run again in 2008, a Democratic official said Wednesday.

This official said Kerry intends to seek a new six-year term in the Senate.

Kerry plans to disclose his political plans in remarks on the Senate floor later in the day, according to this official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting a formal announcement.

Kerry, 64, who lost the White House when Ohio voted for President Bush by 118,601 votes on election night in November 2004, was attending a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting and unavailable for comment.

His decision leaves a field of nine Democrats running or signaling their intention to do so, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, and Kerry's 2004 running mate John Edwards.

The Republican field has a similar number with Bush constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.

Kerry's 2004 campaign drew widespread criticism from fellow Democrats after his defeat. His critics said he had failed to make a forceful enough response to Republican criticism as well as charges by conservative groups that he did not deserve the medals he won for combat in the Vietnam War.

The Massachusetts senator stirred unhappy memories for Democrats last fall, when he botched a joke and led Republicans to accuse him of attacking U.S. troops in Iraq.

He apologized, then hastily scrapped several days of campaigning for fellow Democrats as party leaders urged him to avoid becoming an unwanted issue in a campaign they were on the way to winning.

Polls showed Kerry trailing his Democratic rivals. Last October, an Associated Press-AOL News poll had Kerry at just 1 percent and recent surveys indicated he had gained little among Democrats.

In a CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday, 51 percent of Democrats said they would not like to see Kerry run in 2008. When asked who they would support, only 5 percent said Kerry, placing him fifth and far behind leader Clinton at 33 percent.

The Massachusetts lawmaker decided to clarify his political plans on a day in which he participated in a debate over the war in Iraq by invoking memories of Vietnam. At the committee hearing, he said a memorable question he first posed in 1971 had relevance today: ``How do you ask a man to be the last person to die for a mistake?''

Despite his difficulties on a national level, Kerry customarily rolls up large victory margins at home in Massachusetts. He won his first term in 1984.

While Kerry was saying privately as recently as December that he would likely wage a second campaign, the tone among his aides changed in recent weeks as Clinton and Obama announced their White House bids.

Instead, aides began talking about Kerry's concern about the personal toll a campaign would take. Kerry had millions left from his 2004 run _ a sore point with some Democrats. Despite the advantage, he would have faced intense competition with Obama, Clinton and Edwards for campaign dollars.