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After a process of elimination, John Edwards gets this vote
Posted By katie allison granju
Over at Lean Left, John Edwards has become the chosen candidate:
I ended up at Edwards almost through a process of elimination. I eliminated the minor candidates right off the bat. I know that this is not entirely fair, but they have not received the media scrutiny that the major candidates have and I would hate to “caucus” for someone just to find out that some important but not well covered policies turn out to be inferior. So while I admire Dodd for his real leadership on civil liberty and the rule of law, I just am not comfortable with my knowledge level about the rest of his policies. So, umm, Dodd for VP! Or, in all seriousness, Attorney General.
As for three major candidates, I could live with any of them. I am not happy about any of them, really, becasue none of them are really stretching the bounds of the debate on matters that I think are important. They are all, to one degree or another, bound up in the bi-partisan consensus that some degree of American empire is good for the country and good for the world. None of them would fundamentally alter the war on drugs. None of them are as environmentally sound as I would like. None of them would go far enough in restraining government police powers. They are all good candidates, but none of them are truly great.
I eliminated Clinton first. I think she would be a solid president and probably get a good portion of what she wanted done, with a noticeable mount of that portion being things that would make the country incrementally more progressive. And, to be honest, the thought of the complete, rage filled melt down of a large portion of the right wing should she win the white House is a powerful pull. But she is the most conservative of the candidates and her history has apparently taught her that, when in trouble, go to the right. Worse, she has the most hawkish foreign policy team and her instincts appear to be much more martial than Obama and Edwards. So while I would happly vote for her in the general, as a primary candidate, she falls short.
Obama was the next to go. There is a lot I like about Obama. His proposals and policies on open government and emerging technologies and media are, by far, the most far-sighted and far-reaching. Those may seem like esoteric concerns, but they can and have had a far reaching affect on American democracy. What our country knows about how its government operates and what media voices it has access to are critical components of the health of our politics. His record in the Illinois Senate was solidly progressive. His foreign policy instincts and team appear to place much less of an emphasis on military solutions than Clinton. But he has constantly made a habit of running to the right on almost every high profile issue, at least compared to Clinton and Edwards. He is, in a lot of ways, running against his party. There is no doubt that much of his rhetoric is inspiring and meant to create a new governing consensus, but too often that seems to mean using right wing talking points to attack progressivism. As I have mentioned before, that would be acceptable if he was using that rhetoric as cover for real leadership on progressive issues, but he has not. At some point, without evidence to the contrary, you have to take Obama at his word: he intends not to govern progressively but to start from the position of compromise. And that is not a recipe for success, either for the country or for his Presidency. Again, he would be a decent president, but he wouldn’t get much done and what he would get done would not be as progressive as it could have been.
Which brings us to Edwards.
Jan 3rd, 2008
