Secretary of State John Kerry admitted in an interview published Sunday that he gave some consideration to running on the Democratic ticket for president in 2016 — news Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were likely glad never came to fruition.
Kerry, a former U.S. senator who ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic nominee in 2004, said he thought “for a minute or two” about jumping into the action.
“As any former recovering politician, your juices get going,” Kerry told the Boston Globe. “You work for as long as I have, 1982, ’81, in competitive-slash-electoral politics. There’s a time of year when the sky changes, the wind changes, the temperature changes. You get into the fall. … You feel it. Everybody who’s involved in it says, ‘Whoa. It’s that time,’ and the juices flow.”
The top U.S. diplomat will soon be out of work as Obama’s second term comes to an end on Jan. 19. Kerry said he plans to return to his New England roots and head back to Boston, where he hopes to find work in the private sector, but he would not share details. He also plans to speak out on domestic politics, which he was unable to do in his role in the Obama administration.
