John Kerry Endorses Barack Obama

Immediately when I read that Senator Kerry had lined up behind Barack Obama, I thought that it was bad for Barack Obama.

I remembered that John Kerry was a spineless and fearful candidate that lost to a weak sauce George W. Bush.

John Kerry makes progressives mad. He makes me mad.

But I thought about it a little more and I think it's probably a good thing for the Obama campaign.

Obama seems to have young folks on lock down.

Older, traditional, paper media democrats have been more reluctant. They're the old-school baby boomers that Andy Sullivan was talking about. Obama has largely struggled to earn "legitimacy" with this bunch because of the entrenchment of the baby boomer narrative that Mr. Sullivan discusses. Kerry's endorsement of Senator Obama is, in a way, a repudiation of his own electoral strategy in 2004.

It may help Obama reach voters that have been content to go with the establishment choice. Kerry's large database of contacts and supporters from 2004 may in fact include a lot of Clintonian Democrats.

I could be way off because:

Anecdotally, in my head, I just sort of associate Kerry and Clinton. I consider the stereotypical proactive Kerry supporter of 2004 to be more enthusiastically pro-Clinton than pro-Obama here in 2008. Is that an unreasonable assumption?

What do you make of the Kerry endorsement?

The timing of the announcement is perfect, though. I do have to throw that in here.