Kerry writes about Obama in 4-28 Newsweek

[MBS]

Thanks, babylonsister:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=353929&mesg_id=353929

[JI7]

1. Kerry makes the best case for why Obama should be President

the best thing is that with McCain being an asshole to Kerry in 2004, Kerry doesn't feel the need to be nice or hold back because of any friendship with him.

[karynnj]

2. Actually, Kerry would likely make most of the same arguments had McCain been

better on attacking the SBVT. Kerry is criticizing him on the issues - because they do fundamentally disagree. Those differences are why a unity ticket could not work. They will always argue on issues, what Kerry hoped for was that if he was unfairly attacked, McCain would have the values that would lead him to defend him ob that - and he did weakly once. One possible current silver lining of McCain's embrace of Bush then is that there are likely a wealth of statements where McCain speaks highly of how Bush was running the war - which will be at variance with McCain claiming he was vocal about how badly Rumsfeld was running things.

Here's what Shrum had in his book excerpted in Newsweek:
"One option, the one that would have sealed the election, was off the table. John McCain's political strategist John Weaver had talked earlier with Cahill and said he needed to see Kerry about McCain. According to Kerry, when he met with Weaver and Cahill, Weaver said McCain was serious about the possibility of teaming up with him. Kerry had then sounded out McCain, who rejected the idea. McCain, I told Kerry, was running—but for president, in 2008, against Kerry if he was elected, or after a second Bush term. This meant he'd have to prove his loyalty to Republicans; and we couldn't expect much if any help from him if Kerry was slimed by some "independent" Republican group. It didn't matter that Kerry had rallied across party lines to McCain's defense when he was smeared in the 2000 primaries. Kerry nonetheless clung to the hope that if his service record was questioned, being a member of the "band of brothers" would be more important to McCain than party ID. But I didn't expect much "straight talk" from him this time around."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1626498-1,00.html

Which agrees with an Imus appearance that I never read until today:

IMUS: Well, Senator Kerry, what did happen with Senator McCain?

KERRY: Not very much at all. A lot of—first of all, John McCain’s a great friend of John Edwards and myself. I value my friendship with him enormously. You like him, I like him. He’s a stand-up guy.

And a lot of Republicans actually, and others, came to me and said, “You really ought to think about, you know, having John McCain in a, sort of, unity, fusion ticket.”

There were some overtures made to me. John and I chatted briefly about whether or not it was even something that could be explored, and basically John McCain said he didn’t want to explore it. He didn’t think it was right, it didn’t feel right to him, it wasn’t something he wanted to do, and we didn’t explore it. No offer was ever made.

I mean, you asked me why I picked John Edwards. Look, I wanted somebody articulate. I wanted somebody willing to take on the Bush administration. I wanted somebody with roots in a critical state.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5442847

(These links go off topic - put related and interesting as both are 100% consistent with the blogger one.