The Kerrey Chess Game and Sacrificial Lambs

The longer it takes for Bob Kerrey to decide whether he is going to run for the U.S. Senate the more confusing things become, or do they?

We pretty much expected Kerrey to tell us his decision by now.   Because he hasn't we can only conclude a few things:

• His ego is such that he really wants to run and hasn't faced the need to say "no"
• He's made a decision to run and he is getting together with Paul Johnson who has run his and Nelson's campaigns to craft a 'hit-the-ground" announcement
• He is waiting for one of the other potential candidates to put together his/her campaign announce, plan, etc.
• He's playing a chess game with the governor.   If Kerrey wants to wait until after February 15, that will prevent the governor from filing as he is regarded as an incumbent and can't file after that date while Kerrey or a non-office-holding Democrat could wait until March 1 to file.

We think it would have been nothing short of politically naive of Kerrey, which he isn't, to come back to Nebraska on a 'listening' tour and immediately announce a run for the senate seat.    He would of course want to talk to his and Nelson's previous consultant Paul Johnson and get things in line as to a campaign plan, formal announcement plan, etc.    Kerrey is too smart to just come back and say, "I'm going to run." without working out the details.   And, he wouldn't do so without doing a poll.  These things take time.

On the other hand, if he has told his party big-wigs that he isn't going to run, he would want to give them a little time to recruit a candidate and give that candidate time to put together a campaign plan.

It would appear that the longer Kerrey waits the more likely it is that he will run since by making no announcement he prevents a Democrat from filing and initiating a campaign, unless of course Kerrey already knows who that person is and is just going to let him/her make their announcement prior to his announcement that he won't run.

This is turning into a chess game.   At this point, we think Kerrey has already made his decision and is just waiting for an ally to announce or waiting out the governor as he puts his own plan together.


Our bet, is he won't run and we'll be hearing something soon from another sacrificial lamb......