Hey, zeke. A Question.

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/12/report_obama_takes_dig_at_edwards_trial_lawyer_past.php

Is there a rightist talking-point Obama won't use?
When's he coming out for "tort reform," aka the Dalkon Shield Protection Act?
He's making me very nervous.

 

I think the point that the Senator was making was that he took his law degree, left a high paying job and went to work organizing poor people in Chicago. That shows a commitment to working for the poor.

Senator Edwards took his law degree and went to work as a trial lawyer. That shows a commitment to working for the poor or a desire to earn $50 million, or both.

But either way, he's saying, I don't think he has to cede the populist mantle to Edwards just because the gentleman from North Carolina decided to spend this primary turning up the populist rhetoric.

Or perhaps he's following Paul Krugman's lead and simply letting Democratic primary voters know the kind of tactics he'll be up against.

 

No.
To me, he's demonstrating that he was serious when he told us that he considered Joe Lieberman one of his senatorial mentors.
He also, as I recall, voted for this little gem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_Action_Fairness_Act_of_2005
...which leads me to believe he'll get around to tort reform eventually.

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, and I want to be wrong in this case, but are you hoping to find enough reasons not to vote for Obama, Fenian?

 

This is so cute.

 

It's getting so that I don't have to look too hard for them. I can vote for him against anyone on the other side. I can vote for Hillary against anyone on the other side. That is such a towering collection of rodeo clowns that half the Republican electorate doesn't much like any of them, which is unprecedented in an eight-way field. But Obama's "get beyond politics" shtick is making my skin itch a little. What that comes down to, for me, is that nobody ever gets held accountable for seven years of unipartisan vandalism and a President Obama who gets nuked by the people he thinks he can compromise with.

 

Well, OK. That's your right, I guess.

But I thought your beef with Obama was that he was too much of a dancer and not enough of a puncher. So, he throws a jab -- and really, it was a light jab -- and you get mad at him about that.

But if you want to play that game, I would say the following. I like the campaign Edwards has run this time around.

I have trouble squaring this campaign, however, with the John Edwards who voted for the war in Iraq, the John Edwards who doesn't have any populist record to speak of in the Senate and the John Edwards who sat on the sidelines while his running mate got swiftboated the last time around.

When I combine that with the simple fact that Edwards doesn't have enough money to beat Hillary, and even if he could pull that miracle off he would be essentially broke until the convention. So, if you're worried about what happens to candidates when the Republican attack machine gets ahold of them, well, you might not want to lean Edwards, who won't even have a voice to defend himself.

 

Oh, I suspect the money will be there is Edwards manages to beat Hillary, which he won't. And, while the vote on the war is why I probably won't be voting for Edwards, I don't think it's unfair to assume that a) he was doing what the top of the ticket wanted him to do in re; the Swifties last time, and b) that his views on certain issues may have changed given the wreckage that's piled up over the past seven years. Outside of the war, it's hard to see that Obama recognizes any of it.
My objection to Obama is not that he's not tough. (I don't know enough on that one way or the other. His senatorial election was pretty much a gift, once the Seven of Nine Sex Tapes came out.) It's that he hasn't demonstrated the slightest inkling of what the actual fight is. He thinks the country wants to come together on some vague and rosy sense of America. Serious progressive reform seems to make him strangely uncomfortable, but which has endeared him to a lot of the Beltway folks. And every time he needs a counterattack, he reaches for the rightwing playbook -- Social Security Crisis! Trial Lawyers! -- and I can only hope he never feels compelled to talk about Vince Foster.

 

This is proabably the most interesting political thread I've seen in weeks.

 

And yet, I am full of fail.

 

Ciudado, companero. En la era de le Reconquista Nueva, dicemos "Lleno de falle."

 

Whatever.
Fail, fail, full of fail.