Politics - Reuters
Democratic Party Leaders Unite for Kerry 2 hours, 29 minutes ago
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, along with a who's who of Democrats, will join the party's next nominee John Kerry on Thursday at a unity rally kicking off a massive fund-raising drive.
The gathering of the brightest Democratic stars will honor Kerry as the party's newest leader and raise about $11 million for the Democratic National Committee, to be used in the campaign to unseat President Bush.
Clinton, Carter, former Vice President Al Gore and Democratic Party boss Terry McAuliffe will join Kerry in speaking to approximately 1,600 guests, while seven of Kerry's nine former rivals for the nomination will appear with him on stage in a show of Democratic unity.
Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who is still running for the presidential nomination even though Kerry has clinched it, was not invited. Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun was invited but will not attend. "Today is our unity day. We're the best prepared we've ever been," McAuliffe said while predicting the Democratic Party would have $25 million in the bank with no debt by the end of March.
The rare gathering of both Clinton and Carter, along with Gore, the Democratic nominee in 2000, highlights an unusually high level of unity this year in a party where infighting and post-primary grudges have been something of a tradition.
Kerry told a group of black newspaper publishers that the party was in the best shape it has been in for years.
"We are more united, we are more in the black, we are more available and ready and energized than we have ever been," he said.
WINS DEAN'S SUPPORT
One of Kerry's most bitter rivals in the primaries, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, was endorsing the Massachusetts senator on Thursday at a joint rally at George Washington University.
"The primary goal throughout my campaign was to send George Bush back to Texas. John Kerry shares this goal and is the only person with a chance of doing just that," Dean said in a message posted on the Web site of his new grass-roots organization, Democracy for America. Kerry also will pick up the endorsement of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which endorsed Dean last fall but withdrew the endorsement in February as Dean faltered in the Democratic primary campaign.
The AFL-CIO labor federation, an umbrella group that includes AFSCME and other unions, already has endorsed Kerry.
Kerry returned from a week-long ski vacation in Idaho late on Wednesday and planned an economic speech in Michigan on Friday before starting a 20-city fund-raising tour over the weekend in California.
Kerry had $2.4 million in the bank at the end of February compared to Bush's $110 million, but has a goal of raising $80 million by the Democratic convention in late July.
