Edwards

I don't really think that John Edwards should have to endorse Clinton or Obama before the North Carolina primary, but I'm a little disturbed that he is likely not endorsing because he is holding out for a spot in the administration.

That's a typical political move, I understand. But at some point, you have to lay your cards on the table. Bill Richardson held out for a long time but then he did what he thought was right. Whether that was right for the country or right for him may be up for debate, but he took a stand and stuck with it in the face of withering criticism from Skeletor, ur, James Carville, and other Clinton partisans.

Certainly Edwards must feel one of the candidates is better than the other. The other option here is for him to openly endorse no one and tell the people of North Carolina that they are both fine candidates.

I was an Edwards supporter. But I was always a bit perplexed as to why he was so unpopular in North Carolina was he was a senator. Was it because he was a liberal from a southern state or was there something more profound there? This kind of fence sitting for personal purposes makes me wonder.

Why I Support Edwards over Obama

I really want to support Barack Obama for a lot of reasons. He would be a first in American politics in so many healthy ways. He would be so good for our foreign policy. If he gets the nomination, I will of course vote for him with ease. But I have to support John Edwards. Kos sums up my feelings about the problem with Obama.

Clinton isn't horrible on this front, but Obama has made a cottage industry out of attacking the dirty fucking hippies on the left, from labor unions, to Paul Krugman, to Gore and Kerry, to social security, and so on. People think I was being ticky tack with the Gore thing, and in isolation it would've been but a minor non-event. But it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me, yet another in a pattern of attacks against Democrats and their constituencies. He is the return of Bill Clinton-style triangulating personified. Now I'm willing to consider that this is all a front, and that he'd govern as progressively as Bush governed conservatively after his 2000 bullshit about being a "uniter" and "compassionate". He can even pull a Bush, I suppose, and claim a "mandate" on policies he blurred or ignored on the campaign. But we've seen how a lack of true mandate has crushed Bush's presidency and made him the most unpopular and least effective president in history. I'd rather have our candidate elected promising progressive reform, especially in a year where the American people seem to crave such solutions.

Yes. Obama repeatedly has taken up positions to the right and followed the worst style of Clintonesque Democratic politics. I do think that Obama doesn't actually believe a lot of this. But in a field of remarkably qualified Democratic candidates, issues like this make the difference between support and opposition.

John Edwards and Hunting

John Edwards has made the curious decision to release a Hunting and Fishing Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. It's curious because I'm not sure what he's trying to gain out of such a move, but the ideas are pretty good.

Edwards builds on the long tradition of hunters as environmentalists for this. Conservation was a hunting-propelled movement during its early years. The reasons for this have some disturbing racial and gendered components, but the long term effects of this movement has protected both land and wildlife populations. In recent years, despite the efforts of some hunters, the hunting movement has supported the Republicans fairly overwhelmingly, including damaging environmental legislation.

Nonetheless, Edwards lists such key points as:

Provide more paths into the wilderness
Form partnerships to provide local input on public access issues
Protect the Tradition of Responsible Gun Ownership
Clean up America's lakes, streams and oceans
Protect America from invasive species
Help private landowners with conservation
Involve sportspeople in wildlife management

All of these ideas are good. He claims a politically sound position on guns while painting himself as the kind of smart environmentalist I can support.

Right now, Edwards is my candidate (though Dodd is increasingly appealing). Policies like this only help cement my support.

Via Left in the West

Does Maureen Dowd Ever Have Anything Good To Offer?

I believe the answer is no.

Her latest hot air concerns the John Edwards $400 hair cut. Dowd, that siren of substance, of course makes a big deal out of it. In one of her seemingly ad nauseum columns on this matter, she writes, "Following his star turn primping his hair for two minutes on a YouTube video to the tune of "I Feel Pretty," Mr. Edwards this week had to pay back the $800 charged to his campaign for two shearings at Torrenueva Hair Designs in Beverly Hills. He seems intent of proving that he is a Breck Girl -- and a Material Boy."

I could not give a flying fuck about how much John Edwards pays for his haircut. Neither should you. It's his money and I don't care how he spends it. What I care about is what he thinks about health care, the war, the environment, abortion, gay rights, fighting poverty, and other issues. We should care, virtually to the exclusion of all other matters, about what candidates say about issues. If we care primarily about the image of our candidates, the Republicans are one step ahead.

I say this because I know through friends that at the very least the Obama campaign is using the haircut to attack Edwards within Democratic circles. That's just not really acceptable to me. I don't think it makes me think too much less about Obama; hell, Edwards would probably do the same thing. But it says a lot about problems within the American political system.

I've said this before and no doubt I will say it again--but how do columnists at the Times get their jobs? I, or you, could do at least as good. Probably far better. This is what passes for writing at editorial page of the nation's most prestigious paper???

See also Paul Waldman and Matt Yglesias, among many others.