It's exceedingly elitist for a candidate who has expressed some interest in the Democratic party's nomination for Senate to state for the record that if he decides not to run, he will donate to the Republican candidate, but then again Bob Kerrey is an exceedingly elitist type of guy:
Mr. Kerrey has made it known that he might be interested in running for the Senate seat in Nebraska should Chuck Hagel, a Republican, not seek re-election — and Democratic leaders have made it clear that they would like Mr. Kerrey to run. Mr. Kerrey, in an interview yesterday, said it was unlikely but not impossible.
"At the moment," he said, "I don’t think I’m going to run. But these moments don’t happen very often. It’s a possibility."
Unless Mr. Hagel seeks another term. "If Hagel runs, not only would I not run, I would write him a check," Mr. Kerrey said.
This is the same Bob Kerrey who Chuck Schumer and other Democratic leaders are currently recruiting with a full-court press.
Yet he is now basically saying that Nebraska Democrats are idiots, and that he won't support any of the many potential Democratic challengers for this seat vs. Hagel.
This isn't the first time that Kerrey has given local Democrats the middle finger. In 2005, he openly considered running for Mayor of New York City as a Democrat, even while simultaneously chairing "Democrats for Bloomberg," supporting the Republican incumbent.
And in October 2006, Kerrey travelled up to Connecticut (cynically, on the same day that Ned Lamont was campaigning with John Kerry) to endorse Joe Lieberman and tell the good Democrats of Connecticut that they were "wrong" to nominate Lamont:
Sometimes public opinion is wrong. Sometimes the majority is wrong. And I think in this case, if the majority of the Democratic party of Connecticut voted against Joe Lieberman... I would say very respectfully, and very gently, that "you're wrong."
(Incidentally, at another event in the state on the same day, Kerrey admitted that he "[didn't] know Ned Lamont at all" [2:55 in Youtube]. But he apparently still thought he knew more than the Connecticut Democrats who turned out in record numbers on primary day.)
Kerrey has scored a Unity '08 hat trick by endorsing non-Democrats Bloomberg, Hagel, and Lieberman in the past two years. And he is now considering asking for the Nebraska Democratic party's nomination when he refuses to support that party's nominee... if it isn't him.
By any reasonable standard, he is no longer a Democrat.