Topical Rant #1 (John Edwards)

Those of you who are regular readers of this site have probably noticed a few things about the typical format, being the link dump with commentary (you may have also noticed that I have been terrible at making my once a week goal for the post, we won’t get into why but you can expect me to start posting with more regularity soon), and I’m happy to keep up with the posts of that nature. Sometimes though I want to talk a little bit in depth about something on my mind, and this one has been brewing for a bit. These are going to be a good bit more random than the standard posts and this isn’t technecally the first time I’ve done one. However, I thought it would be best to title my standard posts the way I always have and have these concentrated blasts come as less of a suprise. I’m sure it was an unnecessary move, but here we go anyway.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of my original prefered candidate in the political arena since he admitted to the affair he had (the admission you’ll remember came over the summer). I’ve gone on record as saying that on a political level I couldn’t care less about who a person sleeps with and I stand by that. Obviously I think that on a personal level it was slimy, but I digress from my real point. I think Edwards is done with politics, at least electorial politics, and I think that’s a shame. His presence in the presidential primaries shifted the debate to a more populist location, even if he never really stood a chance without winning Iowa (his second place finish still shocked many, mostly supporters of Hillary I would wager), and the top tier candidates often followed his lead on domestic issues (health care being a chief example) which is why I believe Elizabeth Edwards didn’t say anything. She suspected (like his supporters) that he was the best chance to advance goals of that nature (health care, college for everyone, etc). His voice is a huge loss to the discussion of domestic issues, but I don’t see him making a comeback, or at least any time soon. If we compare his case to that of Bill Clinton we have one huge thing that made Clinton’s subsequent success possible and a couple of major things going against Edwards. Let’s talk about the advantage that Clinton had. He was a winner and already had ascended to the highest rank in the land (debatable I suppose, but let’s grant the premise for the moment) in a party which finds presidental politics to be something of a challenge, even when the climate was such as it was in 2004. But the reason Edwards is almost certianly not going to make a comeback lie in his wife. First, when he had the affair he was aware of the cancer, and somewhat related to that she is a much more sympathetic figure than Hillary Clinton was.

I’ve been thinking about that for a while and I wanted to post my thoughts. For now, I’m out.