John Kerry For Vice President 2016!

[karynnj]

10. Agree

Last edited Mon May 9, 2016, 08:21 PM - Edit history (1)

Not to mention, even if a Democrat intended to keep him on - this would not be the time to speak of it.

One advantage is that he is very very good in this job and he would not have to step down when named, as he would if VP.

I think we usually do not know the full extent of everything that he is working on at a given time, but it is clear that he is incredibly busy. There are major things that he is working on at this very moment.

Looking at the State Department public schedule - he is starting a trip to Paris and London. From the announcement, and the meetings and who is with him, there are clues of major things he is working on. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/appt/2016/05/257012.htm

- Obviously he and Lavrov are still working to get back to the very shaky cessation of hostilities and a peace process in Syria. That has to be in the background of everything.

- Note that Frank Lowenstein is listed as one person with him in Paris. Lowenstein, the son of Allard, has been Kerry's key aide working on Israel - before, during, and after the attempt to get peace. Here is an interesting article in Haaretz, a left leaning Israeli source:

Israel is working to soften the tone of an upcoming report by the United States and the rest of the members of the Middle East Quartet of negotiators – Russia, the United Nations and the European Union. Israel is mainly concerned that the United States will take a harsher position against the settlements.
<snip>
Over the past few weeks the Quartet report has largely become an American report. UN special envoy Nickolay Mladenov and EU envoy Fernando Gentilini are contributing to the content and recommendations, but Lowenstein is taking the lead in composing the report.

Last Thursday Secretary of State John Kerry met with EU Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini in Washington to discuss the report and its date of publication. Next week the Quartet is expected to meet in Moscow to try to unify the various drafts.

A senior Israeli official said that from the information the Foreign Ministry has received in Jerusalem, the report is expected to be published on May 25, about a week before the foreign ministers’ summit in Paris on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The French government called the summit as part of its initiative for an international peace conference by the end of the year. The senior official said that the members of the Quartet want to release the report before the Paris summit so they can control its agenda.

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.718464

- Then London where there is an international anticorruption summit that is supposed to deal with, among other things, the corruption of tax havens which hurt the poor and middle class in every country as they divert revenue. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/perspectives-the-may-2016-london-anti-corruption-summit and https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/perspectives-the-may-2016-london-anti-corruption-summit

Like Climate change and world peace, this is a long time issue for John Kerry - going back to his days investigating BCCI. In 2008, there was a Finance committee hearing on tax havens in the Cayman Islands. When Jack Blum, Kerry's lead investigator on BCCI, testified he and Kerry spoke of how this was an issue that needed an international solution because it can't be solved from each country and it hurts each country by hiding assets of the wealthy. Here is a link - http://www.finance.senate.gov/hearings/-the-cayman-islands-and-offshore-tax-issues

Between the Panama Papers, Obama's call for tightening US laws on tax evasion in his Sturday speech and this conference, it looks like a lot of things are bringing this issue into play. There was also a letter signed by 300 economists against these tax havens - http://abcnews.go.com/International/300-economists-sign-open-letter-offshore-tax-havens/story?id=38980820 Clearly something is happening and this is being coordination somewhere and in this international meeting, Kerry represents the US.

Not to mention, this is just this week - he is also very involved with Obama's trip and initiatives with Vietnam - including one effort to work with them to deal with environmental issues in the Mekong Delta.

If Clinton (or very unlikely Sanders were to win), it would not be unlikely that they would not rush to refill that job, but would have him continue and concentrate on things where Clinton is likely in agreement.

All I can say is that this year, he has looked happier and almost reenergized. I completely believe that he is happy with the work and service he has done - and I doubt he would give up what he can do in the next 8 months for a VP job.