Edwards is not only solid on all of the issues, he’s really visionary, but you already knew that from Amanda’s post. I was pleasantly surprised & I am solidly in his camp. I hope he does well in NH.

For the record: I also think Obama is a little creepy where women are concerned. To wit: watch the “Women for Obama” YouTube video which is creepalicious. It stereotypes women in the worst possible way (think Democratic version of 2004’s “safety moms”). Make sure you especially listen to the “guilt gene” scene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ASwQGwTDII

“i like obama as my senator but hes keeps talking about working across the aisle and i dont trust the implications of that type of rhetoric. it sounds like fancy talk for compromising on issues that matter in order to be popular.”

As Iowa Rep. Dave Loebsack, my Representative, a staunch progressive and as complete an unpolitician as there is, put it: You have to have at least a cordial working relationship with the people you work with in order to really get things done. As long as Democrats and Republicans are Hatfields and McCoys the Congress will remain obstructed and largely ineffectual. This doesn’t mean that you compromise, it means that you establish a connection on a human level so that you can even talk, and then you get to know where everyone stands so that you can assemble allies on particular issues. It doesn’t matter if their reasons are not yours as long as the legislation passes.

Right now the Republicans vote as a bloc because they’re forced to from the top down. Recall the Republican Congressman who actually cried as he voted for CAFTA because it would be devastating to his constituents. Most of this is to protect Bush and Cheney. But Bush and Cheney will be gone in 2009.

It is simply not true that there is no value in reaching across the aisle. Kucinich reached across to, of all people, Walter “Freedom Fries” Jones to cosponsor his last bill to withdraw from Iraq. Feingold reached across to McCain for campaign finance reform even though McCain’s reason for support it was completely partisan and cynical. Iowa Sens. Harkin and Grassley worked together on a good farm bill that was torpedoed by, among other things, Blue Dog Democrats protecting powerful agribusiness interests in their states. And, of course, there was the memorable scene of the Republicans rising to support Kucinich’s call for impeachment. Sure, they were hoping to defeat it, but as with McCain-Feingold what they hope to do doesn’t matter. It’s what the outcome is that matters.

I saw Barack Obama right before the caucus. He offered this version of diplomacy: He would tell the lobbyists and any opposition exactly where he stood. They had a choice: Work with him or be shoved aside by him and the army of popular support behind him. Reaching out doesn’t mean selling out. Negotiating does not mean compromising. Diplomacy is not soft.

Obama talks about hope and about what ordinary people can doso that he can negotiate from a position of strength, with an army at his back that believes that if it fights hard enough it can beat any odds. I can live with that.

As to his being “centrist…” No. He sometimes uses conservative rhetoric to bring disgruntled Republicans and independents into the discussion, but I have a hard time telling his positions from Edwards’ (all the candidates are to my right). For me it comes down to approach, and I think Obama’s is finally more effective.

Seeker—I remind you that the Edwards campaign kept us on, and then we resigned of our own accord. Which is a much different thing than throwing us overboard. Then kindly permit me to remind you of my earlier post:

Somehow I think that she would have stayed if Edwards had stopped seeing her and McEwan as distractions and opened his fool eyes to see her as a weapon.

Thomas, I think that answers your gloat as well.

And if he somehow became president, he’d probably be more restrained in doing bad things than the others, since he’s willing to bend to public opinion. While he’s far worse than a Democrat on any of these issues, lacks Giuliani’s bloodthirst and Huckabee’s theocratic leanings.

(thank goodness).