The dream is dead

I didn't think that John Edwards was going to win the nomination, but I had hoped he would show up at the convention with enough delegates to force the nominee to pre-appoint him as AG. Oh well.

Return of the hack gap or, "My opponent's fortitude is not an issue in this campaign"

On MSNBC this morning Michael Barone deployed the new GOP beholden hack talking points on John Edwards. In bullet point form they are:

• Like everyone, I have great sympathy for John and Elizabeth Edwards
  
• Having a terminally ill spouse would put a lot of stress on a President.
  
• None of Mr. Edwards opponents would bring this up, so
  
• It will be an issue for voters to consider in the privacy of the voting booth.

I feel dirty just from watching Barone's performance. Ick. I'm sure we'll see it repeated hundreds of times by dozens of GOP proxies before this is over. Ick. Ick. Ick.

A note to the naive: not talking about something is not the same as talking about not talking about something.

On the "mistake" and other nonsense

Nothing has changed for Hillary, and John Edwards is seizing on that to try to get a little traction:

When Edwards spoke a few minutes later, he seemed to aim his rhetorical barrels right at Clinton, emphasizing repeatedly how he was, indeed, wrong to have voted for authorization of the war. “I should have never given George Bush authorization,” he said. Arguing that America needs a president who can is “honest, open, and moral” he said that after 6 years of Bush not taking responsibility for the war, it was no longer acceptable to dance around the issue as he implied Hillary was doing.

Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias--who claims he is saying something nice about Hillary--says that Hillary isn't avoiding admitting a mistake. Instead, she just thinks it wasn't a mistake. Is that really being nice, or is he actually being a dick?

Lastly, one of my favorite politicians weighs in on Iraq:

Dennis Kucinich got his licks in, trashing all the other candidates. “It must be hard for these politicians to say they were misled, tricked and deceived by George w. Bush,” referring to their positions on the war in Iraq. “Here’s one who wasn’t. I organized 125 Democrats in Congress to oppose the war and I saw all the same information these other candidates did.”

Lest the "realists" amongst us get bent out of shape, I don't think Kucinich can win, but I don't think his candidacy hurts anybody either. He's one of my favorites not only because of his honorable positions, but also for stuff like this:

He then ended his talk by saying he was the only candidate who had no strings attached to him. Then he lifted his arms up to his shoulders and slowly twirled around on stage repeating: “No strings. No strings. No strings.”

UPDATED: Which Democrat would you like to be President?

Let the 2008 race begin here on this blog. As we get closer, I'm sure we'll talk a lot about who should get the Democratic nomination and save America, and a lot of that talk will involve our judgment of who can win against the Republican challenger. But now, in the early days when we don't even have a clear idea of who is going to run (I mean, seriously, Chris Dodd?), my question is this:

Assuming that the winner of the Democratic primary were to automatically win in the general election, who would you support?

In the field of candidates (and likely candidates) so far, my answer is John Edwards. What about you?


UPDATE: What's the point of this question?

The point of this question is to start acknowledging some preferences among the likely candidates for the Democratic nomination. Likewise, when I later post a question about which could most likely beat the Republican challenger without any concern about whether he or she would actually make a good president, I will also intend to restrict the question to likely candidates.

The point, dear readers and co-bloggers, is to begin a discussion about whom we should support of the likely candidates.

So, no Robert Byrd, and no William Shatner. Got it?