I guess the Kerry campaign’s strategy is: if a stunt doesn’t work, try it again.

Because yesterday they sent a group of pro-Kerry veterans to try to deliver the same letter that Max Cleland brought to Crawford (where Cleland balked at accepting a return letter from the Bush campaign), this time staging the event at Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s office (he wasn’t there)—and it ended the same way, with the pro-Kerry veterans refusing to accept a return letter.

The punch line: this return letter was from a group named Veterans for Working Senators, who are angry about Kerry’s high absence rate in Congress: Veterans face off at State House. (Hat tip: Chris Lynch.)

The face-off began outside the State House, when 10 members of Massachusetts Veterans for Kerry-Edwards attempted to deliver to a representative of Governor Mitt Romney a letter written by former Georgia senator Max Cleland to President Bush. The letter, which Cleland attempted to deliver to Bush at his Texas ranch last week, calls on the president to denounce advertisements by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that question Kerry’s military record.

The pro-Kerry veterans wanted Romney to give the letter to Bush when he campaigns with him in New Hampshire on Monday.

However, the Democratic group had its event crashed by another group of veterans upset with Kerry’s attendance record in Congress. They held signs reading “Where is John (Waldo) Kerry?” and “Kerry No Show,” and they expressed outrage at Kerry’s high absence rate in Congress this year. The group, calling itself Veterans for Working Senators, echoed a message put forward by the Republican Party.

While the demonstration by the Working Senators group was peaceful, the Kerry supporters clashed verbally with Darrell Crate, the state Republican Party chairman, when he stepped forward to accept their letter on behalf of the governor.

Crate attempted to turn the tables on the pro-Kerry veterans by offering them a letter from the Working Senators group demanding that Kerry attend more Senate sessions. When Crate tried to read the letter, the Kerry veterans shouted him down.