Swift-boating.

So damaging was the smear campaign against Democratic Sen. John Kerry - and his poor handling of it - in the 2004 presidential campaign that it has been permanently ingrained in the modern political lexicon.

Asked recently about his failed Swift-boat response strategy, Kerry said that he lost the presidential election not because he didn’t respond with the truth about what happened - “We did,” he said. “But we just didn’t do it right.”

The question is whether Sen. Barack Obama can avoid a similar fate. If he feels the best reaction is to simply keep answering back, he may end up like his predecessor, back in the Senate and wondering where he went wrong.

Ultimately, Kerry did respond to his swift-boat accusers. But his real mistake was making Vietnam a key part of his campaign in the first place.

He even took the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Boston with the introduction, “I’m John Kerry, and I’m reporting for duty.”

His Vietnam record thus became fair game - resulting in the intense scrutiny of personal events 30 years ago, which resulted in conflicting accounts, half-truths accepted as fact, faulty memories and lost electoral votes.

Sens. John Kerry and Barack Obama are the Democrats’ most recent nominees for president. Can the latter avoid suffering the former’s swift-boated fate.

The lessons for Obama - ones he has failed to learn so far in two pseudo-scandals that flared up during the Democratic race - are twofold:

1. Avoid categorical denials about the past. During the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy, Obama said his pastor’s most offensive comments were “not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews.” True? Possibly. But it doesn’t matter if people - whatever their motivations might be - come out of the woodwork with different versions.
2. Simply apologizing can be great for closing the book on a topic. If done right — admitting fault , showing regret, but raising the level of debate - it can turn a scandal on its head. Obama failed to do so amid backlash from “bitter-gate,” responding indignantly to critics (if at all).

Without a doubt, the biggest flaw in Barack Obama’s campaign strategy so far is the insistence on portraying the candidate as the second coming when he is - believe it or not, at least sometimes - fallible and human.

Obama’s responses to criticism thus far have left the door ajar and invited even greater criticism of his past, keeping what should be absurd non-issues very much alive, and hurting his credibility in the process.

John Kerry let himself be swift-boated out of the presidency. If Barack Obama doesn’t learn from the past, he may be doomed to repeat it.

Not shockingly, the Kennedys‘ endorsement of Barack Obama got a lot of people talking about what effect the backing of one of the Senate’s most senior Democrats would have on Obama’s campaign.

Will the young senator from Illinois inherit the Kennedy mystique that was the late president’s?

Kennedy is far from the only member of the Democratic establishment who has decided to support Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton.

The list is impressive, powerful names like Sens. John Kerry (above), Patrick Leahy and Kent Conrad, former Majority Leader Tom Daschle, California Rep. George Miller and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Interesting that they would turn their backs on Hillary, the wife of one of the party’s most popular figures, and a key player in the party herself.

But The Politico notes how Washington’s liberal establishment has joined together around the view that Former President Bill Clinton is tarnishing his legacy and hurting his wife’s prospects in the process.

The South Carolina rout lends credence to that argument.

The question remains, of course: Will more Democratic power brokers follow suit and risk alienation from someone as powerful as Hillary Clinton by backing an upstart? And will it be enough to help Barack Obama survive a de facto national primary on Super Tuesday?

More good news for John McCain.

According to a new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, the Arizonan is “facing unexpectedly formidable challenges” and trails Rudy Giuliani in a head-to-head match-up by 20 points nationally.

The Journal concludes what we’ve seen evolving for some time, that “2008 is shaping up as the worst election year in three decades to be the candidate of the Republican establishment, the spot some in the party think Mr. McCain has assumed.”

Which is why, as we talked about earlier this week, Republicans may buck the trend of choosing the candidate of inevitability this time around.

Given the state of his popularity nowadays, it’s downright shocking to believe that not so long ago, John McCain was a maverick, someone who commanded so much respect from both parties that John Kerry allegedly offered him the vice presidency on the Democratic ticket.

The great irony is that the 2003-2004 version of John McCain would be a lock for 2008. But since he spent the years in between becoming more and more submissive to George W. Bush (regarding the Iraq war in particular), cozying up to the Christian right and, by all accounts, diluting himself to jell with the Republican base, he’s left himself in a compromising position now that public opinion has turned against the GOP en masse.

As a result, the missed opportunity to form a Kerry-McCain juggernaut in 2004 may be the closest McCain ever got to the presidency. Then again, there’s still ample opportunity for Giuliani to falter.

According to Wesley Pruden of the Washington Times, the Democrats have the killer ticket for aught-eight: Joe Biden (pictured) and John Kerry.

Of course, it’s unclear which party they’d be killing.

By rendering their rare brand of campaign magic and insulting everyone at once, Biden-Kerry would wipe the convention clean. Nobody would attract media attention like Joe and John opening their mouths.

You could say this hasn’t been a week to - as Borat might phrase it - make benefit for the glorious U.S. Senate. The honorable members of the planet’s most exclusive club are jockeying for position to attach their names to resolutions denouncing others’ resolutions.

Joe Biden blew his thin presidential chances before he even left the starting block. John Kerry blew off what remained of his Senate cachet, finally conceded the 2004 election and ultimately dropped out of the 2008 race he was never in - and all by simply being himself.

When you start your campaign being quoted saying something monumentally dumb, as Biden did - that Barack Obama is “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” - it’s generally not a good sign.

Biden insists, no doubt accurately, that he meant neither slur nor slander of Barack Obama. Neither did Trent Lott with his infamous birthday tribute to the late Strom Thurmond, but his remarks still cost him his post as majority leader.

You might think that U.S. senators, forever telling everyone within earshot what deep thinkers and artful speakers they all are, would be better spoken than to frame a compliment as an insult.

Interestingly, Biden was no harsher on Obama than he was on John Edwards or Hillary Clinton in his critique of the Democratic field, which was published by the New York Observer. But a man who can’t spot a gaffe this size a mile away will find the road to the White House to be a short one.

Below is a funny e-cartoon we found by the outstanding Bill Mitchell, a former newspaper cartoonist who’s long since abandoned print media for the online world, and who frequently shares his efforts with CNN.com.

Here’s his take on John Kerry’s recent decision NOT to run for president. The ecstatic donkeys pretty much exemplify the feelings among Democrats, who are thankful for Kerry’s decades of good service but grateful, at the same time, that they’ll have a new candidate in the 2008 election.

Look at the crowd go wild!

Source: Click here. Bill Mitchell archive: Click here.

From the floor of the U.S. Senate chamber that has been his home for over two decades, John Kerry officially announced this afternoon that he would not attempt another bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

After a lengthy speech devoted to criticism of the direction the Iraq war has taken, and his commitment to work on getting America out of the war, Kerry said that despite his desire to help the nation, now is not the right time for him to seek national office, the New York Times reports.

His voice appearing to break at one point, he lamented his defeat in 2004 and offered hope that America’s best days lay ahead.

“Two years ago, I sought the presidency to lead us on a different course. I’m proud of the campaign we ran,” he said.

He also recalled his controversial denunciation of the Vietnam War once he returned home from combat, and recalled that he had asked:

“‘How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?’ I never thought I would be reliving the need to ask that question again. We are there.”

Following his speech on the floor, fellow Democratic senators Ted Kennedy (Mass.) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) praised Kerry’s service and called him a “true hero.”

Many other Democrats surely echo that sentiment - but only since Kerry made the announcement that he’s not running. Kerry is, in effect, resigning to a party clearly unreceptive of him, one that has turned its attention to new candidates such as Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (N.Y.).

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