Kerrey Edges Toward a Senate Comeback
BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
The president of the New School, J. Robert Kerrey, is a step closer to a possible bid to return to the Senate following Senator Hagel's announcement yesterday that he won't seek re-election next year.
If Mr. Kerrey runs and wins, the Nebraska seat would switch from the Republican to the Democratic column. That would be a boon to the Democrats, who currently have a narrow 51–49 majority in the chamber.
However, Mr. Kerrey is far from a party-line Democrat, particularly on the central issue of the moment, the Iraq war. In addition, if Nebraskans replace Mr. Hagel with Mr. Kerrey, they will be trading a Republican who has called the war "hopeless" and "an absolute replay of Vietnam" for a Democrat who has insisted that the invasion was justified and that an abrupt withdrawal would hand an unacceptable win to Al Qaeda.
Mr. Kerrey has tangled publicly with the left wing of his own party as recently as May, when he wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal questioning the logic of "American liberals" who favor military intervention in Darfur but a prompt withdrawal from Iraq. "We must not allow terrorist sanctuaries to develop anywhere on Earth," the former senator vowed.
Together with senators Lieberman of Connecticut and McCain of Arizona, Mr. Kerrey was an original sponsor of the Iraq Liberation Act. In December 2003, he told The New York Sun that the invasion was "going well" and was sure to be hailed in the history books. "Twenty years from now, we'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who says it wasn't worth the effort," he said.
In any Senate bid, Mr. Kerrey, who backed Mr. Lieberman in the Connecticut senator's fight with the Democratic Party's liberal wing last year, is sure to be at loggerheads with left-leaning Web loggers. On Web bulletin boards yesterday, he was already under attack as a "Liebercrat."
A political analyst in Washington, Stuart Rothenberg, said liberal bloggers were likely to "cause trouble" for Mr. Kerrey and might even try to draft a primary opponent to run against him. However, Mr. Rothenberg said those efforts would probably come to naught. "Most credible Nebraska Democrats, if Kerrey wants the nomination, they'll be happy," the analyst said.
In a statement yesterday, Mr. Kerrey offered lavish praise for Mr. Hagel and said, "Any discussion of my political future will have to wait for another day."
Senator Schumer, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is reportedly among those strongly urging Mr. Kerrey to make a run.
An adviser to Mr. Kerrey, Paul Johnson, said the former senator is giving serious thought to becoming a candidate and has talked the issue over with trustees at the New School. "We've spent a lot of time going through it and gaming things out," Mr. Johnson said. He said voters will accept Mr. Kerrey's unusual stance on Iraq even if they don't agree with it. "It's the nature of Bob, quite frankly, part of what makes him attractive as a politician, that he's never been willing to go along to get along," Mr. Johnson said.
Mr. Kerrey, a former Nebraska governor, represented the state in the Senate between 1989 and 2001. However, he has lived in New York since that time, a fact that Republicans might try to exploit.
A Senate race analyst for the Cook Political Report, Jennifer Duffy, said Republicans are likely to seize on his affiliation with the New School and perhaps even scour course catalogs for risqué subjects that could paint Mr. Kerrey as out of touch with Nebraskans. "I imagine some of that will come up," she said. However, she noted that New York would also serve as a lucrative fund-raising base for Mr. Kerrey's campaign.
A primary battle is likely on the Republican side between Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and Nebraska's attorney general, Jon Bruning.