They were supposed to be president, but they’re over it

There is something charming about a man who loses the race for president and can joke about it. After the sting of his 2000 loss, Al Gore often told audiences, “I used to be the next president of the United States.”

And after Bob Dole lost to President Clinton in 1996, the former Kansas senator would say, “I slept like a baby. Woke up crying every two hours.”

Into that fine tradition comes Sen. John F. Kerry, who campaigned Thursday with Michelle Obama in the common room of a Las Vegas condominium complex.

Referring to his 2004 run, Kerry said, “Thanks to you, I won -- we won -- 59 million votes, more than any other Democrat who has ever run for president of the United States. I felt super good about that, until I learned that Sanjaya on ‘American Idol’ got more votes than me.”

-- Robin Abcarian

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FINAL WORDS

‘We’ll be together like two first-time lovers.’

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.),

insisting that, in November’s election, there will be no hard feelings from the bitter Democratic presidential fight underway in his state

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‘I can’t think that far ahead because it’s bad luck. I’m very superstitious and I don’t want to be presumptuous. But he is an extraordinary man.’

-- Hillary Rodham Clinton,

during an appearance at Cal State Northridge, on whether she might ask Barack Obama to be her running mate if she wins the Democratic nomination