Kerry was for Edwards before he was against him

Sorry, but The Inside Edge can't resist going with this line about John Kerry's endorsement of Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination: "Kerry was for John Edwards before he was against him."

Kerry's endorsement of Obama continues a tradition of unsuccessful presidential candidates declining to endorse their Vice Presidential running mate for the presidency: in 2004, Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean, not Joseph Lieberman.

Walter Mondale (1984), Bob Dole (1980), Sargent Shriver (1976), and Edmund Muskie (1972) did not have the support of Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey, respectively, when they ran for President four years after losing a national election.

Henry Cabot Lodge won the 1964 New Hampshire Republican primary as a write-in candidate over Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller, but never formally declared his candidacy. Still, he did not receive any support from his 1960 running mate, Richard Nixon. Earl Warren, the Governor of California and the 1948 GOP Vice Presidential candidate, ran for President in 1952, but Thomas Dewey backed Dwight Eisenhower.

James Cox, the former Governor of Ohio and the Democratic nominee for President against Warren Harding in 1920, was vigorously opposed to Franklin Roosevelt’s nomination in 1932.  He arrived at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with a mission: to deny a victory to his old running mate.