Kerry's perceived equivocation on the Iraq war damaged his 2004 campaign, according to both Democratic and Republican political operatives. "It spoke to a pattern of calculation and indecisiveness that make him look like a weak commander in chief compared to W. Bush", said Jonathan Prince, a strategist for 2008 presidential candidate John Edwards, Kerry's running mate in 2004. In the 2008 primary season, Edwards simply stated that "I was wrong" when he had voted in the U.S. Senate to authorize the Iraq War. "Progressives loved it because it was taking responsibility, not abdicating it", according to Prince.