Pat Dollard | Young Americans

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) - Barack Obama has won the presidential endorsement of Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats’ 2004 nominee who lost to George W. Bush.
Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, plans to announce his support Thursday at a rally at the College of Charleston, said a Democrat familiar with Kerry’s decision. The 2004 nominee will argue that Obama can best unite the country and has the potential to create transformational change, the person said.

UPDATE:

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Senator John Kerry embraced the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama here on Thursday, saying Mr. Obama “had the greatest potential to lead a transformation, not just a transition.”

“Who better than Barack Obama to bring new credibility to America’s role in the world and help restore our moral authority?” Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a rally at the College of Charleston. “Who better than Barack Obama to turn a new page in American politics, so that Democrats, independents and Republicans alike can look to the leadership that unites to find common ground.”

Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who was the party’s presidential nominee in 2004, said he was endorsing Mr. Obama’s candidacy because he believed he was uniquely situated to inspire “millions of Americans to join together and come together in a movement” to demand real change in Washington.

It was just outside of Charleston where Mr. Kerry formally opened his own presidential campaign, standing in Patriot Point’s harbor against the backdrop of an aircraft carrier on Sept. 3, 2003. After losing to President Bush, Mr. Kerry had planned to make a second bid for the White House in 2008, but decided against it and has remained on the sidelines for the last year throughout the party’s nominating fight.

South Carolina was selected as the site for the endorsement, aides said, to bolster Mr. Obama’s effort to win the state’s Democratic primary on Jan. 26. It was designed to send the message to voters here that he believes Mr. Obama is a better candidate than John Edwards, Mr. Kerry’s former running mate, who has vowed to keep his own presidential candidacy alive.

“There are other candidates in this race with whom I have worked and whom I respect,” Mr. Kerry said. “Each of them could be president tomorrow. But I believe that more than everyone else, Barack Obama can help our country turn the page and get America moving by uniting and ending the division that America faces. He has a superb talent, as all of you know, to communicate the best of our hopes and aspirations for American and the world.”

The endorsement was weeks in the making. In the final days before the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Kerry was on the verge of announcing his support for Mr. Obama, aides said, but a final decision wasn’t made because it was not clear how it would affect the campaign. So Mr. Kerry decided to hold off on the endorsement until after New Hampshire primary.

When the two men embraced, beneath magnolia trees at a sun-splashed rally that drew a sea of people here, it brought the relationship of the men full circle.

It was back in 2004 when Mr. Kerry selected Mr. Obama — then a state senator, vying for a United States Senate seat — to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. The speech elevated the stature of Mr. Obama almost overnight, launched the reprinting of his book, “Dreams From My Father,” and set his political career in overdrive.

Mr. Obama’s second-place finish in New Hampshire on Tuesday may have slowed some of his potential endorsements. In addition to Mr. Kerry on Thursday, Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota announced his endorsement for Mr. Obama.

While Mr. Obama trails Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in endorsements by their Senate colleagues, a half dozen or so Democrats were seen as likely candidates to lend public support to the Obama campaign in the coming days.

“There have been some conversations, I can say that,” said Senator Ben Nelson, the moderate Nebraska Democrat. Mr. Nelson, who invited Mr. Obama to campaign for him in 2006, said he has not yet pulled the trigger on an endorsement but that he was more inclined to consider one now since two Senate Democrats — Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut — had dropped out.

“When there were four of your colleagues, it certainly made it virtually impossible to do so,” Mr. Nelson said earlier this week. “You get to two and it is just a little bit easier.”

Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader and an early backer of Mr. Obama, said that the Illinois senator is in position to quickly pull the party together behind his candidacy should his streak continue.

“Of all the candidates running, the easiest to rally around is Barack Obama,” Mr. Daschle said in an interview. “Because of his newness on the scene, he has not created the political opposition and enemies that come with extensive service in politics. He is a clean slate.”Mr. Kerry’s endorsement comes as the race for the Democratic nomination is growing tighter. This afternoon, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is expected to announce at a news conference that he is dropping out of the presidential race, following his fourth place finish in the New Hampshire primary.

Mr. Richardson won just over 4 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, a week after a similar showing in the Iowa caucuses. In a recent interview, a campaign spokesman said that they were hoping for a third place finish in Tuesday’s primary to continue on to Nevada and other Western states.

The break-neck speed of primary season is keeping candidates of both parties moving quickly, even as they try to catch their breath from a caucus and a primary just a few days apart. Between now and Feb. 5, 22 states will vote.

After spending about a day in Michigan, which will hold its primary on Tuesday, Republican candidates headed to South Carolina for a debate tonight in Myrtle Beach, sponsored by the Fox News Channel. South Carolina’s Republican primary is scheduled for Jan. 19.

All the Republicans will be in Myrtle Beach for the debate, and John McCain and Mike Huckabee were campaigning in the state before the debate.

On the Democratic side, Senator Clinton’s campaign aides gathered Wednesday to plan how best to take advantage of her victory in New Hampshire as she and Senator Obama prepared for a protracted nationwide battle for the nomination. After that strategy session, she was heading to Nevada on Thursday, while Mr. Obama and John Edwards were campaigning in South Carolina.

Mr. Edwards remains in the race, but his distant third-place finish in New Hampshire moved the Democrats toward a two-person race between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama.

Maria Newman contributed from New York.