2008 Democratic Front-Runner is ... John Edwards (yes, he's running)

He's the front-runner in some early polls....
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1570071,00.html

He's going to run....
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/16/edwards.forpresident.ap/index.html

 

Announcing in the Ninth Ward of NOLA puts some issues on the table, I'd say.

 

My wife read Elizabeth Edwards' book. Cried like a baby. I read a few chapters, enough to realize that the wrong member of the Edwards family is running for president.

 

Edwards enters the charts straight in at No. 3 at best.

 

In the words of a man much smarter than me...



NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

 

Except that, in the most recent polls, he's the only D ahead of both McCain and Giuilani.

 

Is dealing with income inequality a winning general election strategy for 2008? I do not think a sizeable portion of the voters care about raising the incomes of the poorest in society. They care far more about trying to raise their incomes along with spending less on such things as health care and college.

What has Edwards proposed about dealing with income inequality? Raising the taxes on the rich will do little to raise the incomes of the poor and middle class.

 

It's still 13 months before the Iowa caucuses, but for the moment Edwards sits as the front runner in three of the first four contests:

-- Iowa (slight lead in an earlier poll and now this margin)
-- Nevada (has backing of the major Las Vegas unions)
-- South Carolina (native state)

Of course New Hampshire is sandwiched between Nevada and South Carolina, a lot can change in a year and I doubt Edwards will have the money to compete with Obama and Clinton after the first weeks.

This doesn't make him the campaign's front runner, but he's not B-list, either.

 

This is an unfair statement.

I do believe a sizeable portion of the voters believe in finding a way to raise the incomes of the poorest in society, but they don't want to have to pay for a Great Society-style way of doing it. It is fair to say a sizeable portion of the voters does not want their taxes raised to pay for such programs, but that doesn't indicate a lack of willingness to help the poor (for example, I am a big believer in helping the poor through education and free-market solutions that lower unemployment, but wealth redistribution programs only serve to punish the "rich" and create government jobs ... but really do little to help the poor on a long-term basis).

I think the better way of saying it is "a sizeable portion of the voters don't want to have their taxes go way up to fund government programs that do little to end -- and actually, more likely perpetuate -- the cycle of poverty."

 

I hope (but doubt) he gets the nomination. I guess it's possible that he has grown immensely in his time out of Washington, but he was very much exposed as not ready for prime time in 2004. Much more of a lightweight than many of the others being considered. Going into it, he was Obama (almost) - the darling of the media, every town's backup QB. When he got in, he was more Gradkowski than Romo. We'll see about Obama.

 

The conventional wisdom from the loyal opp which, after seven years of a feckless legacy Deke and the wreckage wrought thereby,ought not to throw around the term "lightweight" so freely.

 

Is it? I hadn't heard it much. Why would that be, because in reality he scares us so much more than Obama or Hillary? I guess we're really shaking about Kucinich.