John Kerry may have some spare time to spend with the family. After his ridiculous comments on Monday and the equally ridiculous explanation on Tuesday, Iowa Congressional candidate Bruce Braley has asked Kerry to stay away from their scheduled campaign appearance this week:

A Democratic Congressional candidate from Iowa is canceling a campaign event later this week with Senator John Kerry.

Bruc[e] Braley says Kerry's recent comments about the Iraq war were inappropriate.

Braley is running against Republican Mike Whalen in Iowa's First District congressional race. It's a contest considered to be one of the most competitive House races in the country.

Will we see more of this? Kerry has scheduled events here in Minnesota for Tim Walz and a party-building event for the DFL (Minnesota's Democrats) today. Tonight he goes to Pennsylvania to campaign for Bob Casey, Jr, and the Braley campaign event was scheduled for tomorrow.

Will Walz withdraw his invitation to Kerry as well? Will Casey?

UPDATE: I'm still pretty torn on this controversy. Had Kerry simply come out yesterday and said, Whoops, my bad -- I left out a couple of key words from the punchline and left the wrong impression -- my apologies!, I think the entire story would have died immediately. However, in his typically tone-deaf manner, he decided to brand the entire incident a Republican smear, despite the fact that he had been quoted accurately.

Now he's left with the argument that he misquoted himself while trying to show off his supposed intellectual superiority over George Bush, and that it's all Bush's fault despite being Kerry's intellectual inferior. Really, no one could have scripted a more hilarious scenario, and the longer Kerry continues this line of defense/offense, the more ridiculous a figure he becomes. It demonstrates clearly that the "I was for the $87 billion before I was against it" gaffe was no fluke.

UPDATE II: Kerry won't be campaigning with Tim Walz or the DFL, either. The AP reports that Kerry has canceled all of his Minnesota visits:

U.S. Sen. John Kerry canceled a campaign visit here in the wake of a controversy over remarks he made about students and the war in Iraq, according to a spokeswoman for congressional candidate Tim Walz.

"He wants to make sure the campaign is about the issues we've been talking about the last two years," the spokeswoman, Meredith Salsbery, said of Kerry's decision. "It's important to him that we are able to do that."

Kerry was to appear at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Minnesota State, Mankato, with 1st Congressional District candidate Tim Walz. Walz will still appear at the event, Salsbery said. Walz is trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn.

This seems out of character with Kerry's professed passion for fighting back against Republican smears. Perhaps other Democrats managed to talk some sense into Kerry overnight.

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