Kerry to Swift Boaters: Bring it on, again

Eyeing a run in 2008, he says he'll "kick their ass" this time.

Published September 14, 2006 7:08PM (EDT)

Just in time for 2008 -- which is to say, two years too late for when it mattered -- John Kerry says he has a plan for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. "I'm prepared to kick their ass from one end of America to the other," Kerry tells Bill Sammons. "I am so confident of my abilities to address that and to demolish it and to even turn it into a positive."

Sammons caught up with Kerry this week in New Hampshire, where he was campaigning for local Democrats but also, it seems, for himself. The junior senator from Massachusetts says he still thinks he'd be a "good president," and he doesn't "buy" the idea that Hillary Clinton has the Democratic nomination already locked up. "I dont care what the dominant, conventional wisdom is today," Kerry says. "It will not be the dominant, conventional wisdom in a year."

For what it's worth -- not much -- the latest CNN poll on Democrats' preferences for 2008 shows Clinton leading with 37 percent, followed by Al Gore at 20 percent, Kerry and Edwards tied at 11 percent and Russ Feingold, Bill Richardson, Mark Warner, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden and Tom Vilsack all in the low single digits.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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John F. Kerry D-mass.