Obama Picks Up Kerry's Endorsement

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Kerry Endorses Obama

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., endorsed Sen. Barack Obama's, D-Ill., presidential bid at a rally in Charleston, S.C., saying Obama "should be the next president of the United States." Joel Brown reports.

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On Thursday, Kerry made the mirror-image case: that Democrats should rally around Obama because he possesses judgment and idealism that have not been tarnished by an overlong tenure in Washington. He cited Thomas Jefferson's writing of the Declaration of Independence at 33 and King's delivery of his "I Have a Dream" speech at 34 as proof that age is immaterial.

"Mile by mile on the long march of this campaign, the cynics have questioned whether this young leader from Illinois is ready. But you know what, the cynics may have spoken, but it is the people that will decide," he said. Kerry added: "When we choose a president we are electing judgment and character, not years on this Earth."

Kerry did not refer by name to Clinton or Edwards, saying only that the other candidates in the race were "terrific public servants." But he disputed Clinton's warning against Obama's "false hopes." "The only charge that rings false is the one that tells you not to hope for a better America," he said. "Don't let anyone tell you to accept the downsizing of the American dream."

Kerry's endorsement carried practical help for Obama in the form of the 2004 nominee's e-mail list of supporters who can be tapped for financial assistance.

Supporters gathered in the courtyard said Obama is also now on more hospitable ground, politically, than he had been in New Hampshire. While they had seen the signs of a growing Obama organization in South Carolina for months -- he has 11 offices in the state -- they said his victory in Iowa showed many in the state, particularly doubtful African Americans, that his candidacy is legitimate.

The defeat in New Hampshire had not appeared to cancel out the subsequent movement toward him in the state, they said, perhaps because Clinton's margin of victory was relatively narrow. If anything, supporters said, the New Hampshire result had energized some in South Carolina more, because it reminded them that he would not be able to coast to the nomination and would need their help.

Obama himself has fully incorporated the New Hampshire setback, and the criticisms from Clinton and her husband that preceded it, into his stump speech, casting it as the unavoidable resistance to a burgeoning movement and seeking to draw energy from it. He led the huge crowd in chants of "Yes, we can" and declared that even though "we've been told we can't do this . . . that we have to pause for a reality check," there is indisputably a movement afoot. "There is something happening in America," he said.

Kane, with the Clinton campaign, reported from Las Vegas. Staff writer Dan Balz in Washington contributed to this report.