what can DU partisans do to get me to vote for their candidate?

[dsc]

Honestly, not much. I am going to look at what the candidates do. You can bring out things they did that I might not have heard of, you can lead me to links that describe your candidate and explain something they did. What isn't going to work? Trashing other candidates with right wing sources and other nonsense. Being a smart ass. Telling bald faced lies intended to make your candidate look better.

I haven't a clue who I will vote for in Feb. in NC. I do know that the candidates are what I am looking at.

[zanne]

1. Ultimately, you'll vote for who you want anyway.

Next, please.

[Sapere aude]

2. We Dems pride ourselves in not letting others do our thinking for us.

That is what the right wing needs, a daddy to tell them who to vote for. That's why there is so much right wing talk radio. Those fools need rush and hanity to tell them what their opinions should be.

Think for yourself

[PATRICK]

3. Two directions

without necessarily selling Edwards, though that is where I am coming from. Talk out the various candidates with a range of friends and acquaintances. Half the points everyone is making will be reflected better in real life and a wider selection of the real electorate spectrum. That will ultimately decide how the elections will go anyway, not our debates here.

The second is to see the strengths and the weaknesses, the complains, caveats or critiques here. that means wading through the loyalty, the hype and huff, the exaggerations and indignations and conspiracy tendencies. What partisan can do is exactly what you have demanded. Lay out the arguments, lay off the trashing, be honest and fair and across the board on critiques. For example it seems to me no candidate is squarely facing or equipped to deal with election fraud, or immune to the dirt. It seems best when saying something about your candidate getting misjudged it is best to include how that applies also to the others. Getting too comfortable with the mystical idea that the "One" candidate is supremely tasked and endowed to overshadow all the scary realities will produce a path to defeat(not necessarily by the actual number of votes). Te inexplicable circular, early self-fulfilling meme that Edwards' personality has not "caught fire" is most reminiscent of getting "Gore-d". Weak slant, but distasteful by its recurrence among Dems who should know better and had better look back to now admired icons who were perceived that way originally as well. When the MSM talks about catching fire they look for a novelty, a newbie, a non-starter, an establishment name reinvented, hoping to control the stampede to a Tsongas but not a Clinton, or to a Perot, Powell, etc.

Edwards in summary has chosen and is consistent with the economic populist path and the values associated with them. This is supposedly, depending on your camp, where Gore got in trouble or went the right way. Among our millionaires, self made or otherwise, Edwards is the closest to the working family ground as well and has credentials opposing the economic predations of large corporations. Edwards experience and admitted mistakes are combined with growth and flexibility. The negatives, the way I add them up, in the long run should reveal Edwards as the superior vote getter and adversary to the MSM slime and the electoral map. It depends on how strongly Edwards actually epitomizes areas like the South rather than just coming there and being a rogue liberal. He speaks more passionately and more directly and down to earth(there is a lot of subjectivity there that would take a lot of conversation). He certainly is not afraid to make strong decisions and his position places him facing the right directions to become more progressive and less a tool of the forces that have created this mess. Winning with Edwards would mean winning with the right thrust forward and possibly the larger more progressive Dem Congress. Dean might even keep his job and the party the Dean grassroots direction which is still tender to the corruption of DLC rivals should anything like a disdainful purge take place. Going in the wrong direction(even with admirable legislative agendas) there, alone, might doom the ripe rewards and future majorities of the party.

Understandably, Edwards has not fully raised the Dean/Gore banner. As a result many of his logical supporters long for Gore, and no can can fault that. Yet that is where he is going addressing a huge centrist middle to set it on fire toward the left. Candidates like JFK were loved but gave rise to doubts in doubtful times, as ours is. They did not overwhelm, even against much less fraud than weighs against us still. Of all such, Edwards has the most genuine character, the clearest working class roots, the most populist energy, though not as cannily ruthless. Charmers like Reagan are allowed in our tilted system to wow and set aside such doubts. Dems are allowed the deference to lose gracefully, only the people generally knowing who their friends really are. Eisenhower= sure thing. There is none anywhere now for any party. Moderates with oddities in their base suffer greatly(but can win, no doubt about it). Yet these centrists, if they overcome the GOP, get pulled right or trashed, generally both. Carter is the prime example of that whole direction. Bill Clinton more successfully survived it(though not our democracy).

Edwards was precisely in the position where Obama is now, which raises points and minuses for Obama. Obama might be the progressive leaner as well, only this time he is cautiously centered like Edwards once was in 2004. I think a work in progress just begun is reminiscent of JFK AND the horrific troubles
that plagued the young president encountered in the ways he was forced to reach out. The calamities that came from even the perception of lack of experience and positioning were frightening at that time.
The reality today can mean lack of progressive positioning, power and drive can be measured in loss of lives on an incalculable scale. This is why people strongly argue for Gore AND a huge victory. Yet Gore has strong, unfair prejudices among anyone seduced at any moment by media spin. Gore would be a top choice but he is not declared.

The last time it was more of a people's push, despite the organized of candidates who until Dean and Clark upset the routine. In that group I had a bunch of horses, no problem, all things balancing out. Edwards, Kerry, Clark and Dean, somewhat but not necessarily in that order. I think Edwards is better now and the primary slate not as rich or driven by the electorate, angrier than ever over GOP crimes and the war. The populist surge is within just as Dean and the re-organization of effort is. As such it never waves a flag, rocks the boat, or buries the faulty DLC rationale once and for all. So one every reasoning level and personal attribute I favor Edwards. This time it matters, which is what disturbs me in my feelings toward the other candidates, victims of entrenched unfairness much more than any disagreement I have with their likely performance, electorally or when in office. We have won the last two presidential elections. This has stretched very thin my automatic acceptance of other candidates. Nothing about the present is fair, but with Edwards we have a chance to win with the strongest real progressive push for the most change available.

If Edwards disappoints expectations I don't see yet how the the others could be better. The mandate he earns will be a progressive one and more in tune with the people's strongest desires. That will be anabled and continue more than just his leadership of it. The presentation of this momentous election has been up to this point much too trivialized compared to reality and what is at stake. Trivialized by evasion, MSM gaming and not having legitimate GOP opponents, just Dauphins or figureheads for a doomed, incompetent business dictatorship. That is NOT a choice. It is a crisis!