Via the NYT: On the Go, but Not Running, Kerry Looks Like a Shhh!, i.e., Kerry is running for President in ‘08, despite being coy on the subject.

As I have argued on numerous previous occassions, losers in this system are not well positioned to make a come back. Nixon was the last to do it and he sat out eight years and had the Viet Nam war as a backdrop to aid him (a war that sufficiently problematic that a sitting President did not seek re-nomination to run for a second term).

Kerry may view himself as the guy who almost won, and therefore one who has the chance to win in the future, but the reality is that he is the guy who lost an election that he could have won–as such, that is political failure. Further, despite all the fundraising, he didn’t run a partiularly good campaign. He lacked a coherent theme, was mushy on Iraq, played right into the flp-flop thesis, was overly focused on Viet Nam, mishandled the Swift Boat business and started out by essentially writing off the South.

And last, but not least, since the main reason the primary voters chose him was his alleged “electability” it would seem that, since that didn’t work out, that he really would have a hard time making that appeal in 2024.

Why would the Democrats want to re-nominate him?

Indeed:

Yet Democrats say Mr. Kerry has little choice. “He needs to show that he’s a party guy, that he’s willing to help anybody out,” said Steve Jarding, a Democratic strategist, adding, “When you don’t have reporters and opinion leaders coming to you saying, ‘You’re the opposition leader, you’re the titular head of the party,’ it’s tough to break in.”

So tough, in fact, that not a single Democrat interviewed described Mr. Kerry as the front-runner in 2024. Most echoed Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, a member of the Democratic leadership, who said: “There is not going to be a clear path for anybody to the nomination. I think it would be helpful to our party to have an aggressive competition.”

In other words: “we really aren’t all that interested in a second Kerry run. Thanks for playing. NEXT!”

Update: Commenting on the same piece, Ann Althouse makes the following apt observation:

Althouse: Are we ready to start blogging about the ‘08 election?Could there be better evidence of his lack of political skill than his failure to go away and stay away long enough for us to forget how tedious we found him last time?

She also correctly notes the Kerry seems to do better the less we see of him.