"Posted: Feb. 15, 2004
Democrats in Wisconsin and elsewhere owe much to Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and candidate for the presidential nomination of their party. Perhaps more than any other candidate in the race, the long-running Dean has set the thematic framework and identified the critical issues in the coming battle with President Bush. Those themes and issues by now are familiar to voters: the conduct of the war on terrorism, justification for the invasion of Iraq, globalization and the loss of manufacturing jobs, outsourced services, health care costs and coverage, tax cuts skewed to America's most prosperous citizens and a deficit-burdened fiscal policy.
On these and other issues, there are distinctions, but not significant differences, among the Democrats. On Sunday night, for example, a debate at Marquette University sponsored by the Journal Sentinel, WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) and Journal Communications Inc. provided another forum for the candidates to call attention to what separates them. Instead, they continued to demonstrate the ties that bind: a belief that Bush has botched the job of president, hurt the U.S. economy with his policies, gone to war under false pretenses, failed to internationalize the military effort in Iraq and damaged America's reputation in the world. And they generally agree on how they want to set matters right.
For Democrats, then, the challenge is to nominate the man who can take his party's common vision for the nation and convince voters that it offers the right course for America. That man, in our judgment, is Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. We urge Democrats to vote for him in Tuesday's primary.
Edwards, of course, is an underdog; in public opinion polls here and nationally, he runs well behind Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who has won 14 of 16 primaries and caucuses and who plainly is the odds-on favorite for the nomination. Many Democrats want to declare an end to the primary process and effectively coalesce around Kerry."
more
http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/feb04/207847.asp