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are still under the radar today. With ONE VIP thing that has to be emphasized and not merely for the shrewd sake of anyone's favorite candidate.
The people decide. This stage indeed ignores what the people at PRIMARY ballot time will actually have in their minds and hearts. This stage is dominated by the search for money and "kingmakers" and is adjudicated by the media circus pomp that is a tent all its own which real voters can only enter by having a ticket or peeking under the tent.
At primary time people might very well have in their minds LAST time. They wanted a solid across the boards strongest candidate for the best chance. And they got stung mightily. Edwards strength then as it is now, for which I have a twofold support(like him, like what he brings to the electoral campaign) begins with a base he can sweep up. Those people who see him as the best, more on fire, most appealing, most vote-getting, most unbogged down(sorry Obama)by the losing establishment, with the least negative baggage. ALL the support for other candidates other than Gore is shallow even if broad. The real choice of the nervous voters will flock to a confident, solidly outreaching, solidly sold presentation to this
most dominant mindset.
SHOULD the voters only vote for the biggest frontrunner? They don't. The best experienced, distinguished candidate? They don't. They vote for hope and having two fine choices robbed means they want what I wanted in 2004, someone who not only will win but win as big as possible and sweep aside the MSM machine and jumpstart a real restoration devoid of unfair and unjustified caution and compromise with the crooks and destroyers. What Hillary proposes, to "move on" top a high road healing presidency will be Edwards' at the outset. And then he can move on stronger legislatively and legally.
The secret thing is fragile at this stage. The name recognition that partly fuels Edwards in Iowa is as nervous as anything else but contains more potential. Edwards has to WIN the depth.
Behind the scenes everyone is assessing 2004 and how Kerry came back, Dean got eliminated, Edwards got stifled, Clark never got far off the starting block. ALL of those were fundamental frustrations that were not smooth and clouded a tempestuous process underneath the sleek mastery of the primaries and debates. Obama is cautious and has given in to the tempting offerings of the initial season. The POLITICAL experience as a campaigner for the presidency and fire necessary to win people to his possibility as a nation sweeping charismatic leader. Come primary time people will be as tepid as the tepidity of candidates and the smart bold, experienced candidate with the least baggage(however unfair or unreal) will have a sudden apotheosis at the ballot box. ironically, if Obama HAD remained the rookie without the most money and help he would have gone to his strength and had a chance to prove himself. Well, he has so far bypassed the test to grab the "requisites" so well that he is almost hamstrung by a natural caution and measurement of speech. Obama can beat Hillary on the high road, but the common road walked by the seething Dem masses who coldly and hotly want the best winner are walking a path of choice that so far belongs to Edwards alone.
Only Gore could automatically mangle this scene gaining what others would have to work mightily for, or an Obama who could reforge his anchor in the personal tour de force necessary, but very unlikely, to become the populist surge needed to convince twice stung voters he can overcome and get the most.
The main thing for Edwards is to avoid the permanent second choice status, the special type of ruinous caution that diverts, averts and distracts the attention of voters and their passions. he has to meet more personally with leaders and members of choice and activist groups who represent passion and votes. Labor, Move On, black coalitions, veteran caucus and coalitions, smaller candidates with passion and cause(Clark, Kucinich), Gore, newspapers, radio(make Big Ed stop whining). If he has wisely chosen not to woo the loser establishment and the smothering of big money and old advisers, then he should start the grass fires. They will not happen without sparks or if rained upon by a discouraging campaign season of introspective caution and hot air without real confrontation.
So I am more convinced this time, absent a Gore candidacy, that Edwards is THE best choice and the even more likelier choice among real primary voters on decision day. The policy shadings or other questions pale to insignificance, but I and the voters are left with the same conundrum. The Edwards campaign has to solidly go for it and prove us right. Because most of the depth of our choice is like the instinct for survival itself. We WANT the best and strongest and most victorious campaign that represents the best of our party in a time of doubt and crisis. That goes beyond any individual loyalty or any issue preference.
Edwards can still lose depth and following by missteps, over caution, and my favorite at the moment, stepping into a diverted issue unsuccessfully. And luckily not too many are honing in on the Israel visit because the media doesn't want to show America how the war in Iran is accepted as inevitable outside our curtained borders. In fact Edwards went where few dare to tread with some good ideas, but the end result was that, in a grim reminder of his Iraq war vote, the focus is still bent on the issue
of a war that Bush alone is creating and making inevitable. Bush should be THE focus and is mystically allowed to keep his hands on the throttle of destiny so that his physical power to give the order to the war machine is absolutely untouched. Arguments AROUND his policies(which will never change, with the inevitable disastrous results)do not give comfort to the democratic voters. Clark has been ALLOWED to this stalwartly on FOX for years. And we still wait helplessly, as if by conditioned choice, for a new slaughterhouse. This must not be.
One could almost feel the physical struggle of Dean to grapple with this diversion of focus, this false "mainstream" abdication of destiny to the Bush/Cheney horror. When he came out and in parallel against the cautious party go-along policy as it was then it was almost THE crux of a grassroots fire that was not ready to match the crowing pre-war establishment. THAT groundwork of grassroots matches the fire of truth and democracy that might be the wave Edwards can continue. Now that the terrible results that do NOT bear repeating in Iran are in.
The quandary with ALL Democrats is the crisis of the now and the seemingly automatic rewards of the safe course for the election. Why is it so easy to certainly sacrifice lives in the fear of upsetting
the equation when that indecision itself cuts the heart out of what the voters will want come next year? Why is it so hard to challenge the abuse and 100 % certain continuation of lying abuse now when it is needed and will give heart and proof to the majority of Americans? Are we still afraid of the minority and the powerful who might turn against us, of besmirching the mythical throne we want to win- that HAS become a petty anti-democratic throne indeed?
To win votes, candidates go to groups telling them things in their interest and with zeal. They make national speeches for broad consumption and broad appeal that avoid angering specific constituents and making people uneasy. They prefer broad rather than impassioned, often mercurial response but want it both ways. They campaign in effect, but do not lead. Dean hung on to lead after "defeat". Gore went on to lead. We want, maybe need more than just as a candidate, someone now who will lead now. It will be remembered this time that populism and confrontation was right and hope is its human landscape.
Stop this president on iran. Someone else must lead and begin all these policies anew. Bush's policies were to break off diplomacy, bully support against targets with oil, and go in with poor planning to accomplish brutal goals incompetently no matter what. ALL necessary policies need to have Bush removed from the throttle, because his compromises have been non-existent, counter-productive, dishonest, 100%
for the sake of his own harmful agenda, and horrifically costly to the human race and its destiny, gutting hope along with hundreds of thousands of lives when the goals(lies told to us)were won without killing or looting. It is TOO LATE to ask for a change of plan or style for Bush as it is too late to stop war against Iran, no matter what, if he simply is allowed to remain the "decider". He has shown in fact he will listen to no wisdom outside the proved warmongering failures and the second string stooges he can get by with this time. These continued actions are, to logical minds outside the US, are a clear sign that we have initiated a war that only awaits the command to fire the first salvo. The forces need to be scaled down and drawn back if diplomacy is even to be seriously considered as possible now.
For a candidate now to fix the issue as it is in reality is to stamp leadership upon the brow, since this time even the anti-war movements themselves are diverted with the phony escalation in Iraq. No one would be following their lead because the whole nation has been bent away as if by a huge magnet from confronting Bush's will to murder Iran. Many smaller careers have been thrown under the wheels of this clownish juggernaut and shameful national impotence. Many have memories of many unconfronted evils or dominance that, when challenged, savaged the Democratic Party as well as individuals. Many seek comfort in wisdom that abandons victims now for future advantage. The gamble is arguable except that it is the proof to oneself that one can be president and do what must be done.
In the crises of this age and the next that look to be on a scale so vast these tests today, these lives sacrificed, seem feeble in the balance, are actually the test of mere hope and chance and at the least that humanity will confront its future with its best, with hope, and decision and not be fatally spun by robber barons, thugs and the debilitating fear of the worst of humanity that these embody, cast like chains upon the sinking human race.
We need to cut through the lies and now is the time.
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