Myrtle Beach (South Carolina): Barack Obama is being endorsed by fellow Senator John Kerry, the Democrats 2004 presidential nominee who lost the US election to George W Bush that year and gave up his own plans for a 2008 run a year ago. Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, planned to announce his support Thursday at a college rally, said a Democrat familiar with Kerry's decision.

The 2004 nominee was to argue that Obama can best unite the country and has the potential to create transformational change, the person said. Kerry should be able to provide some organisational muscle to Obama as he battles against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in a race to become the first black American president. Since losing the 2004 race, Kerry has kept a national network of supporters intact. He has an e-mail network of 3 million supporters, according to aides.

He also has travelled extensively raising millions of dollars for Democratic candidates across the United States. Kerry lost the South Carolina Democratic primary in 2004 to John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who now is running third in the 2008 campaign behind Clinton and Obama. Besides any potential help for Obama, today s endorsement was a slap at Edwards, who was Kerry's running mate in the last election. The two had their differences during the campaign over strategy and spending. In postmortem interviews, Edwards said he would have been more aggressive in challenging the unsubstantiated allegations of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the Vietnam War veterans who questioned Kerry's military record.

Source : PTI