Will John Kerry run again? The ball is in Teresa’s hands (PittsburghLIVE)
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry may want to consider running for president again in 2008. But his wife, local ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry of Fox Chapel, has made it clear she won’t sit still for another campaign. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” an unidentified Heinz Kerry friend told the Boston Herald. “Teresa will never do it again.”
Not necessarily, said Jeff Lewis, a Heinz Kerry spokesman. “Teresa Heinz is too smart to say that,” he said. “She campaigned her heart out, as did her husband … it was hard work and a great experience and we’ll just go from there.”
According to the Herald, sources say Heinz Kerry went into a deep funk after President George Bush was re-elected — especially because her husband came so close to victory. “She was angry and hugely disappointed and (ticked) off,” the Heinz Kerry friend told the Herald. “She wanted to win so badly.”
All snarkiness aside, it has to be devastating to lose after investing two years running for office. While Kerry would be an instant frontrunner for the nomination in 2008 if he chose to pursue it, odds are against him. While it was once more common, with such stallwarts as Adalai Stevenson and Thomas Dewey getting multiple shots, the last major party candidate to get a second shot at the nomination after losing the election was Richard Nixon in 1968. Too many Democrats are angry at Kerry for failing to beat what they perceived as a weak incumbent to make a second shot realistic.
