The 2004 presidential campaign of John Kerry, the longtime U.S. senator from Massachusetts, began when he formed an exploratory committee on December 1, 2002. On September 2, 2003, he formally announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. After beating John Edwards, Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, and other candidates in the primaries, he became the Democratic nominee, challenging Republican incumbent George W. Bush in the general election. Kerry selected Edwards as his running mate.
Kerry conceded defeat in a telephone call to Bush at around 11 a.m. EST (16:00 UTC) on the morning of November 3, 2004. Had Kerry won, he would have been the first incumbent senator since John F. Kennedy to be elected president and the second Catholic president after Kennedy; the latter feat would be eventually accomplished 16 years later by Joe Biden. Edwards would have been the first vice president from North Carolina. Kerry also would have been the first president born in Colorado and the fifth president from Massachusetts. Kerry was the most recent Democratic presidential nominee to lose both the electoral vote and the popular vote until Kamala Harris in 2024 against Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Edwards would run for president again in the 2008 Democratic primary, finishing third. That year's Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, became the third sitting senator elected president after Warren G. Harding and Kennedy. Kerry would win for another term as a senator from Massachusetts in 2008 until he was nominated by Obama following his reelection in 2012 as Secretary of State.
Political positions Economy and budget Kerry supported enhancing the Balanced Budget Act. In 1993, Kerry voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Kerry supported eliminating tax incentives for companies that move operations overseas and making efforts to reduce outsourcing.
Kerry was against funding cuts in Social Security benefits. He opposed privatizing Social Security accounts.
Immigration
Kerry supported cutting the Bureau for Citizenship and Immigration Services' application pending backlog and reducing the lag for the naturalization process. Kerry endorsed benefits to legal immigrants. Kerry supported the DREAM Act. Kerry supported the proposal of legalizing the status of illegal immigrants, pending a certain amount of working time in the US and passing a background check. Kerry proposed border enforcement reformation and an increase of border enforcement funding.
Education and science Kerry voted for the No Child Left Behind Act and argues that it should be "fully funded" which would entail funding several programs up to authorized levels of funding. He proposed a new "Education Trust Fund" to require the federal government to fund programs up to their authorized levels. He also proposed a "College Opportunity Tax Credit" for "economically vulnerable" students.
Kerry promised to increase funding for scientific research, to reduce restrictions on stem cell research, and to facilitate cooperation with foreign scientists by improving immigration and visa practices. He said he would support efforts to reduce global warming.
Law and justice As an assistant district attorney, Kerry personally prosecuted armed robbers, rapists, and mob bosses. He is in favor of putting resources in the community, backing the Community Oriented Policing System Act (COPS), and creating laws that lead to criminals being arrested and convicted. Kerry has advocated expanding the COPS program to place 100,000 police officers in community policing assignments. Kerry supports the Police Corps program. In the Senate, Kerry has advocated laws that punish drug dealers and money launderers.
Death penalty Kerry has long stated his opposition to the death penalty, but stated that he would support it in the case of convicted terrorists. He had previously opposed the death penalty for terrorists on the grounds that it would make it difficult to extradite suspects to the United States to stand trial. (Many nations refuse extradition requests, on humanitarian grounds, if the suspect faces execution.)
Illegal drugs Kerry's proposals to deal with illegal drugs included focusing on keeping drugs out of the country as well as reducing demand for illegal drugs. Kerry supported aggressively targeting traffickers and dealers. Kerry supported funding drug prevention and treatment programs.
Guns Kerry is a gun owner and hunter. Kerry believes that law-abiding Americans should continue to have the right to own guns, but only guns that fall within the "hunters and sportsmen" paradigm. As he has voted in favour of various gun control measures, the NRA Political Victory Fund gave him an F rating in 2004, their lowest rating. In 2002, the pro-gun control Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence indicated that Kerry voted their preferred position 100% of the time.
As a senator, Kerry has supported: The Brady Bill and mandatory background checks Legislation to close the gun show loophole A ban on various types of semi-automatic firearms Mandatory gun locks
Social issues
Abortion Kerry affiliates himself with pro-choice women's organizations. Kerry is against the criminalization of abortion. In the Senate, Kerry consistently voted against bans on abortions conducted on military bases and military installations overseas, as well as against the ban on partial-birth abortion. He has been given a 0% rating from the National Right to Life Committee and a 100% rating from NARAL.
In an interview on July 4, 2004, Kerry told the Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph Herald "I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception." "I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist," he continued in the interview. "We have separation of church and state in the United States of America." Archbishop Raymond Burke said that he would deny Kerry communion over his position on abortion. The issue led to comparisons between Kerry's presidential campaign and that of John F. Kennedy in 1960. While Kennedy had to demonstrate his independence from the Roman Catholic Church due to public fear that a Catholic president would make decisions based on Vatican commands, it seemed that Kerry, in contrast, had to show obedience to Catholic authorities in order to win votes. According to Margaret Ross Sammons, Kerry's campaign was sufficiently damaged by the threat to withhold communion that it may have cost him the election. Sammons argues that President George W. Bush was able to win 53% of the Catholic vote because he appealed to "traditional" Catholics.
Gay rights Kerry is in favor of the acknowledgement and protection of civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans. John Kerry is an original cosponsor of the Hate Crimes Prevention bill and supports passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. He introduced a very early bill (1985) into the Senate to statutorily forbid sexual-orientation-based discrimination. Kerry cosponsored the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act (CARE) and also sponsored the Vaccines for the New Millennium Act.
Kerry supported same-sex civil unions, but opposed same-sex marriage. Kerry supported legislation to provide domestic partners of federal employees the benefits available to spouses of federal employees. Kerry voted against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the Senate in 1996 and opposes the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). He and Senator Edwards were absent for the unsuccessful vote to invoke cloture on the FMA, a procedural move that the FMA's proponents had conceded beforehand would be defeated. In an interview with National Public Radio in February 2004, Kerry endorsed equal rights for same-sex couples, but commented that "the word marriage kind of gets in the way of the whole debate," because of the religious origin of marriage as being limited to male-female unions.
Kerry opposed the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Since 1995, Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay-rights advocacy group, has given Kerry a 100% rating for his voting record in Congress.
Affirmative action Kerry states that he supports affirmative action and diversity programs, a claim supported by his Senate voting record. He has, however, expressed reservations about affirmative action in the past, most notably in a 1992 speech in which he reportedly called the practice "inherently limited and divisive," explaining that it "has kept America thinking in racial terms." Kerry has also received some criticism from African Americans because his campaign inner circle was entirely white. Kerry also remarked on Bill Clinton's close relationship with African Americans: "President Clinton was often known as the first black president. I wouldn't be upset if I could earn the right to be the second." Kerry's remark was not well received by some blacks.
National service Kerry supports supplementing national service in nearly all aspects of American life, including requiring community service for high school students to graduate, a "Summer of Service" for teenagers (essentially community service during summer breaks from school, with a U.S. $500 grant for college), increasing the Peace Corps to 25,000 members, requiring universities that receive Federal funding to offer a ROTC, and providing more funding for ROTC scholarships.
Foreign policy
Iraq Kerry voted in support of the Senate resolution authorizing the President to use force against Saddam Hussein if he failed to surrender his weapons of mass destruction and related tools for constructing and distributing them. Kerry, in October 2002, declared his belief that "Iraq has some lethal and incapacitating agents and is capable of quickly producing weaponizing of a variety of such agents, including anthrax, for delivery on a range of vehicles, such as bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers and covert operatives which would bring them to the United States itself." The National Intelligence Estimate, to which Kerry had access, held some skepticism of Iraq's capability. Kerry's vote to support the use of force in Iraq was given with strong stipulations that all other peaceful avenues be exhausted first, and that any action of force would be done in conjunction with a world coalition, and not just with the British. (Kerry's full statement before casting his resolution vote)
After the President launched the U.S. invasion against Iraq, without meeting all of Kerry's stipulation, Kerry reiterated his position and declared the administration's Iraq policy reckless at best and baseless at worst. He has since been outspoken against the handling of the war and of the Bush administration's stewardship of occupied Iraq, attacking what he calls poor planning and poor diplomacy on Bush's part, but supports remaining in Iraq until the task of reconstruction and reconciliation is complete. He changed his position on WMDs by saying they were not enough to go to war with Iraq. (Kerry's post-attack view on Iraq) This harmed Kerry's campaign when he was perceived as a "flip-flopper," changing his position to better suit what is popular. This perception was strengthened after a March 16, 2004, debate at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia when Kerry made what would become one of the most famous lines of his campaign stating, "I actually did vote for the 87 billion dollars, before I voted against it." The Bush campaign immediately seized on the comment, using the footage in television ads to illustrate its charge that Kerry flip-flops on issues, particularly the war in Iraq. "Kerry Discusses $87 Billion Comment,"