I just wish that Edwards would quit pretending he has been a progressive leader all along. When he was in the Senate--before he decided he wanted to be president--he was just another Blue Dog Democrat saying yes to George Bush and Dick Cheney. Now he wants to say "sorry" and have us hand over keys to the White House.


I'll be voting for Obama, because he has been a consistent progressive voice on the issues that matter the most in this election.

Obama campaign is in a panic! Barack Obama has a lot of explaining to do.
He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive. He supported allowing retired police officers to carry concealed weapons, but opposed allowing people to use banned handguns to defend against intruders in their homes. And the list of sensitive topics goes on. With only a slim, two-year record in the U.S. Senate, Obama doesn't have many controversial congressional votes which political opponents can frame into attack ads. But his eight years as an Illinois state senator are sprinkled with potentially explosive land mines, such as his abortion and gun control votes. recent land purchase from a political supporter who is facing charges in an unrelated kickback scheme involving investment firms seeking state business. Abortion opponents see Obama's vote on medical care for aborted fetuses as a refusal to protect the helpless. Some have even accused him of supporting infanticide.

It seems to me that both Republicans and Democrats are having trouble making up their minds. For dems, the problem is that most of us would be content with a number of candidates. For republicans, the problem seems to be that they aren't really happy with any of them.

Its not the "schools" that need reformed, friends.
They work excellently at what they're designed to do: ensure as far as humanly/technologically possible that students do NOT escape the socio-economic niches they were born to fill.
Student "achievement" is far more about social class than math--or english, or history-- class. Well over 50% of all variance on between-groups measures on standardized tests, across the whole spectrum of them, is accounted for by one single variable: the socio-economic status of the parents; especially that the mother have attempted higher education.

"Change is not going to happen because we don't listen to people...or because we holler at Republicans."

That is a ridiculous statement. Does Obama really believe that if Edwards doesn't listen to lobbyists or calls Mitch McConnell a douche that this ends any hope for change?

This is either a misquote or really poorly phrased by Obama. The writer should include the entire quote to clarify what Obama was attempting to say.

Obama's is starting to sound like an 'independent Democrat' with his 'less on ideology and more on practicality' and running for every American of every political stripe.

Maybe he can catch a ride around New Hampshire on the Straight Talk Express and do some catching up with his mentor. It would certainly give him the Obamamentum going into February 5.

Obama's "new kind of politics" sure sounds a lot like the triangulation politics that he derides Clinton for. I just can't see how adopting false Republican talking points on Social Security is anything 'new'. Democrats have been cowed into negotiating against themselves and accepting Republican's BS crises for years now.

Simply pretending they have a point and we should bring a candy cane to a gun fight is not hope, but the act of a fool.

As Atrios might say, people disagree about things. Are we willing to fight for what we believe or not?

"That last bit sounds an awful lot like John McCain, of course, who Obama is currently battling for independent votes in New Hampshire."

Of course, the ARG poll out of NH today shows that Edwards has overtaken Obama among Independent voters in NH, but don't let facts bother your pre-decided storyline.

"um, colorful" wtf is that supposed to mean?

Obama is no better than Clinton--at all. What about the following puts practicality ahead of ideology?

Obama, in August, threatened to attack Pakistan--pre-emptively--when the world knew that nuclear powder keg of a country was spinning out of control. He stated that he would not only deploy US troops to Pakistan ("The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan"), but also that he would violate Pakistani national sovereignty if Musharraf failed to root out terrorists ("If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will").

http://www.barackobama.com/2007/08/01/the_war_we_need_to_win.php

No papers, networks, or liberal blogs have even mentioned it, let alone scrutinized such an outrageous policy. Just yesterday, Russert allowed him to boast of his foreign policy "judgment," especially in light of the Bhutto assassination!

"um, colorful" wtf is that supposed to mean?

I think it means Obama's music can dance and dunk, but has trouble swimming, while Edwards music is stiff and formal, but academically and financially successful.

I'll be voting for Obama, because he has been a consistent progressive voice on the issues that matter the most in this election.

Basing your vote on "consistency" seems unwise. Who cares what someone thought in the past, as long as you're convinced they don't think like that any more? This is the same kind of sentiment that is leading GOP voters to stupidly prefer Huckabee over Romney, even though the latter is just as reliably conservative but with a much better chance at winning.

Obama, in August, threatened to attack Pakistan--pre-emptively

I'm not defending Obama's position on this issue, but it's worth pointing out that he didn't exactly advocate "attacking" Pakistan - he advocated incursions into its territory to go after third parties. This exhibits a flagrant disregard for Pakistan's sovereignty and is overall just kind of imbecilic, but I do think it's not quite the same as "attacking" Pakistan.

The "inconsistency" complaint about Edwards is that before he started running for President, his highest "liberal" ranking was in the top 20% of the Senate, and worst ranking somewhere around 40th ... he only hit 4th when he started running for President.

So, the argument goes, he only became liberal when it was necessary to appeal to the Democratic primary electorate.

However, those same facts also fit, equally well, the argument that he was just about as progressive as a Senator from North Carolina could be that was trying to get re-elected, until he decided to he was not going to continue working under that constraint, and given that he was not going to be running for re-election, decided to run for the Presidency.

Both narratives match the same voting record.

But the first narrative has more trouble fitting what he choose to do after Kerry lose the race ... which was to spearhead the establishment of a Poverty Studies center at the UNC Law School.

This was before Katrina, and a lot of people seem to have forgotten what was the dominant opinion of the move by people evaluating it in terms of laying the foundation for another tilt at the Presidency ... fighting poverty was a "nice" issue, but not one that would excite the imagination of the American public.

In other words, assuming that he was simply laying the foundation for another run at the Presidency, the fact that he chose the issue of poverty as the core issue in that run clearly establishes that he is not just a "Blue Dog at heart" who is simply adopting progressive causes for political convenience.

However, the broader point is that it doesn't make any real difference. If Edwards has simply decided that adopting progressive causes and driven the policy debate in the race toward his positions by the pace and depth of his policy roll-out ... what ever wrong with that?

That is, suppose that Edwards is cynically pandering to us as much as he can. Isn't that one of the things we have been trying to accomplish? That is, haven't progressives in the blogosphere been trying to "put pressure" on politicians to pander to us?

Why complain if it should start to work?

Jason C,

If you bothered reading his statement you would know that he did advocate attacking Pakistan (as if national sovereignty was a technicality anyways). Even so-called "surgical" strikes against a powder keg of a country would only explode in our faces. In addition, he vowed to deploy US troops to Pakistan and strike preemptively (no Pakistan permission necessary).

"If you bothered reading his statement you would know that he did advocate attacking Pakistan"

Oh, garbage. If you're going to bitch about a candidate, the least you can do is tell the truth. Below is a link to the full text of his remarks. In context, there isn't a damn thing wrong with what Obama said.

The real question is not in what he said, but in whether he should have been so explicit. There isn't a presidential candidate out there who would rule out similar behavior for the circumstances he describes.

Here is the full text of his remarks.