The Real Liberal...

(and I know he will never sleep at night until he has my personal forgiveness - I'm ready to consider it, but his hyperactive supporters on DailyKos, etc. make it difficult - apparently he makes at least one 'major statement' on some critical issue every day)

I've never really forgiven Edwards for what I thought was his abysmal performance against Cheney in the VP debate... I was at work reading breathless fawning accounts of his 'withering' trial-lawyer cross-examination of Cheney, but when I went home to watch it, it just sounded like a whiny guy saying "Halliburton" over and over again, whether appropriate or not. At this point, having had one term in Senate and 4+ years in the presidential race, he comes across as a bit of a "professional candidate"...

money quote: "In head-to-head polling against the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, Clinton and Obama have managed to post only modest leads. Edwards, by contrast, not only bests every Republican candidate in the race, he trounces them -- by an average of twelve points."

I think he has a soul too. His personal story (his son dying and wife having cancer) are pretty remarkable. I just wish he could accept that everything he does now is part of the campaign. So to go on a highly publicized tour of poor areas in the south and act like he's doing it because he's soooo compassionate and that it has nothing to do with him wanting to president is just annoying. Come on, John. We're not all that stupid. Some, yes. All, no.

I may be in the minority, but I believe there is something to this article. I admire Obama and Hillary, but their public campaign personae somehow leave me cold. I know many of Edwards 'spontaneous' or 'outside-the beltway' statements are really cleverly calculated and staged chess moves, but for some reason, I find myself believing he has a soul and that his sentiments and rhetoric come from the heart.

I do agree in a sense that in any other election, Edwards would have made for a much more appealing candidate because of his so-called "electability." I still think he might be a good possible VP candidate for someone, because in some sense he's politically savvy but not in an overwhelming kind of way. I would say his family life experience gives him something that the other candidates do not.

But I still lost so much respect for him after he said he was "taking time off from the campaign" to go on his so-called Poverty Tour. As if it WASN'T part of the campaign. As if anything he does is not part of the campaign. Especially a tour of impoverished southern states eerily reminiscent of the tour Kennedy took. Hmmm...