Kerry will not seek White House in 2008

WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) Democratic Sen John Kerry of Massachusetts, who lost the 2004 election to President George W Bush, will not make another run for the White House in 2008, party sources said today.

Kerry planned an official announcement of his decision later today, the sources said.

Kerry would have faced a tough challenge capturing the nomination again given the strong competition and lingering criticism from some Democrats that he ran a lackluster 2004 campaign against Bush that failed to take advantage of growing public doubts about the president and the Iraq war.

He was forced to apologize and cancel all his campaign appearances in the week before the 2006 congressional election after he made what he called a ''botched joke'' about troops in Iraq that prompted a storm of Republican criticism.

Several Democrats distanced themselves from Kerry ahead of November's election.

Kerry's fellow Democratic senators, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, and his 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards, are already in the race and lead a field of at least eight candidates seeking the Democratic nomination.

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