John Kerry will not run for U.S. president in 2008

I don't think so. It seems he's just realizing that the candidates who have already announced are very strong contenders, and that he won't have much of a chance of winning.

Yeah, I've seen quite enough of Nader as a presidential candidate. If we're lucky he'll stick to his consumer advocacy, but I don't know if he can resist the temptation to stick his finger in the eye of the major parties one more time.

Yeah, I think if Kerry had run he could have counted on hearing that clip replayed over and over. I've heard the whole speech in context and don't think he meant what others have accused him of meaning, but nevertheless it was a poor choice of words, and easily interpreted in the wrong way. He would have spent the whole campaign trying to explain that one remark.

Obama is like a black John F. Kennedy--a young, dashing senator, very charismatic. He's got a rock-star like aura to him, but he's only in his first term in the Senate, so he doesn't have a lot of experience. Maybe in 2012, I think. Clinton is very polarizing, people either love her or hate her. But the fact that there are serious female and black contenders for a major-party nomination is probably the real story of the 2008 campaign so far.

A lot of Dems are still miffed with him over 2004; they feel that if he ran a better campaign he would have won the election. So many of them didn't want him to run again, no matter who else was in the mix.

I'm sure the Republicans are disappointed that Kerry's not running! They've probably been adding to their file of Kerry gaffes for the last 2 years.