LJS: Kerrey Edges Closer
Aug 23, 09:24 PM CST
Kerrey edges closer to Senate bid
By DON WALTON / Lincoln Journal Star
Bob Kerrey stepped to the brink of a possible 2008 Senate bid Thursday.
Kerrey placed a conference call to New School University trustees in New York City to inform them he may be returning to Nebraska.
A decision on whether to return to his roots and attempt to once again represent Nebraska in the Senate is likely “within the next couple of weeks,” Kerrey said in a telephone interview.
“I wanted my board to know it’s possible I would say yes. I want them to be prepared.”
Kerrey said he has become convinced Sen. Chuck Hagel will not be a candidate for a third term next year.
“I am more and more certain Chuck is not going to seek re-election,” Kerrey said, “and my intention is to make my decision before he makes an announcement.”
Hagel is expected to reveal his decision next month.
Kerrey, a Democrat, has said he would not seek the Senate seat if Hagel, a Republican, bids for re-election. The pair served together as colleagues in the Senate from 1997 to 2001.
Despite their differences in party affiliation, Kerrey and Hagel count each other as friends, bound in part by the shared experience of being wounded in combat in Vietnam.
“This is a very personal decision for me,” Kerrey said. It requires him to balance personal happiness with the opportunity to “try to do something good for my country,” he said.
While returning to Nebraska is appealing, Kerrey said, he “could not be happier” than he already is with his wife, Sarah, and their son, Henry, who will turn six next month and begin school this year.
Kerrey said he also remains happy with his life at New School, the storied educational institution in Greenwich Village that describes itself as a progressive university.
“I don’t want uncertainty to hit the university,” said Kerrey, who has been its president since 2001.
“I want to make sure my employers and the community understand” it’s possible he might be leaving soon.
Asked how trustees reacted during the conference call, Kerrey said: “They were lovely. They understood. They said they don’t want me to leave. But they also understand why I would be thinking of doing this.”
The trustees “took a lot of risk” in hiring him, Kerrey said. He had represented Nebraska in the Senate from 1989 to 2001, and before that served as governor for four years, but he had no experience as a university administrator.
“They have been very supportive and very generous with their time and money,” Kerrey said.
Kerrey said he has received no signal from Hagel about the senator’s intentions.
“The only signal I get is connected to the fact that I went through this too at the end of my second term,” he said.
“I know that with me it could have gone either way.”
In 2000, Kerrey struggled with two political decisions: whether to seek the Democratic presidential nomination and whether to seek re-election to the Senate.
Ultimately, he decided to do neither and accepted an offer from New School instead.
In 1992, Kerrey was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, but withdrew from the race after finishing third in the New Hampshire primary and winning only in South Dakota.
Kerrey has remained engaged in national issues during his tenure at New School, most notably serving as a member of the bipartisan commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington six years ago.
As he nears his own political decision, Hagel too has been mulling a possible presidential bid.
Attorney General Jon Bruning already has entered the 2008 Republican Senate race.
Other GOP prospects include U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns, a former two-term governor.
Former Omaha Mayor Hal Daub, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for four terms, is also considering the race.
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