Dear Senator Kerry:
I write as a supporter of yours in 2004, from way before the convention, to suggest that you do yourself a favor and announce now that you are not running in 2008 and will devote your full efforts to helping the Democrats in the U.S. Senate. Ironically, this may be your best bet to be considered Presidential material again some day.
They say that when you are in a hole you should first stop digging. If you keep running for President, please write me from China.
A poll ranks you dead last in popularity among a group of active politicians. I like you better than a lot of the people on the list, but not better than any of the Democrats. I don't think this is because you lost the last election. I think it is because you never stopped running for President after you lost, not for one minute. Personal ambition is just not that attractive.
I went to a "thank you" rally you put on in San Francisco in December 2004. This wasn't to thank anyone. It was to kick off your 2008 campaign. It made many of us very uncomfortable, but you didn't notice. I would have given you this advice then, but it seemed rude to say it to your face and I had not started blogging.
You have taken to sending me, and presumably many others, regular e-mails. Why? Do you think we enjoy deleting them from our mailboxes?
What you should do is function as a Senator from Massachusetts, which is your job. You should do useful things in the Senate, like write bills and hold hearings. Maybe if you stayed in town, you could even have a position of responsibility. This would be a good image. Harold Stassen with a rich wife would be a bad image. With time, you could be more popular than Harry Reid.
If you do a good job and accomplish things, maybe people will turn to you in the future. But, if you continue to run a perennial, annoying campaign, they never will and you will have accomplished nothing in the meantime.
The only downside is that if you hang around the Senate, you will never lose the habit of self-referential pompous lecturing, because that is the norm there. Maybe you could start hanging out more with John Tester and less with Robert Byrd. Start by going a whole hour without saying, "as I have often said." Baby steps.
Oh, and don't appear in public doing effete sports that require spandex or harnesses.
Your friend,
Steve Kaus
UPDATE: Some think the sports reference is gratuitous, but the kitesurfing and skiing pictures, followed by the hunting overcompensation,was exactly what showed that Kerry was tone deaf to the American electorate. I was very much in favor of Kerry, but the person i was in favor of ultimately was proven not to exist IMHO.
