What bothers me if we nominate Edwards

[mot78]

Is that someone like Drudge will dig up a five year old quote of him praising free trade.

1. Let him

we have to stop being scared of this kind of stuff

[Walt Starr]

6. Yup, it's too late now for buyer's remorse

We have a clear choice, Kerry or Edwards. Decide which one sucks the least and go for it!

[NewYorkerfromMass]

16. Apparently Dean sucked more than either?

if you insist....

[bluestateguy]

2. That's how it works

Candidate goes up in the polls, corporate media starts digging and unfavorable stories pop up in the news.

My concern with Edwards will be the "not ready for prime time" argument the Bush-lovers will use. That line of simplistic argument can resonate very well in a post 9/11 world. Also, Edwards would be broke by the time he managed to fight his way to the nomination. He accepted federal matching funds, along with the spending caps, so he would be really shackled to fight back once the $200 million Bush ad campaign kicks into gear.

[mot78]

4. We have 527s so that shouldn't be a problem

[SeattleDem]

7. yup, it becomes up to us

to send what we can for issue ads rather than to the candidate directly.

[JoePizz]

5. We can't outspend the republicans, nor should we try

That's playing their game by their rules and with a stacked deck.

I think the spending is irrelevant once the primary is over.

If the Bush people want to play a "Not ready for Prime Time" argument, then just remind people that Bush had (and still has) even less experience and look what it's gotten us- a terrorist attack on our country, over 2 million jobs lost, two wars, and a stagnent (at best) economy.

[SeattleDem]

9. Edwards in the Senate as long as Bush was a governor

plus, Edwards I believe is on the foreign affairs or security committee, so he has more defense experience than Bush had when he "won"*

[AP]

11. Furthermore, we shouldn't have a 500 millionaire and a 10 millionaire

battling it out without spending limits at a time when people working for a living are seeing a bigger and bigger gap between their life experiences and the way their elected representatives experience Ameria.

[katieforeman]

12. I actually think Kerry is much more vulnerable to attack

Edwards already has more foreign policy experience than, Reagan, Clinton or George W. Bush had when they were elected. Edwards has actually been to Pakistan and Afghanistan and met with those leaders. Remember Bush couldn't name the leader of Pakistan in 2000. It will be very hard for them to attack Edwards for lack of experience.

What worries me is Kerry's voting record. For example:

Kerry advocated cutting intelligence spending in 1997 and then blamed Sept. 11th in part on our lack of intelligence.

Kerry voted against the first Gulf War and for the current I raq war and his reasons are inconsistent.

Kerry was against the death penalty for terrorists who killed Americans overseas in the 1980's.

I like John Kerry but I think it's easier to attack a long voting record than a lack of experience.

P.S. I like Kerry and will work hard for him if he is the nominee. Edwards is my first choice and I think he is more electable also.

[AP]

3. I think that the thing that makes candidates contradict themselves is when

they say their convinctions are organized around a principle that they're not really organized around.

For example, say that Kerry's biggest conviction is about his desire to build up political power by playing the DC game so that some day he can have the ultimate political power -- the presidency -- to which he is entitled because of the social class to which he was born. Say he had to trade favors with the corporatocracy in order to get to the top, because he didn't really have the charisma or connection to the public which could have obviated the need to play the political game.

Well, even if he had some vague notion of helping people who work for a living as being his motivating factor, the fact that something else organized his actions, and you might find lots of conflicting stuff in his record which suggests the disconnect.

Well, then you compare this to Edwards. His organize principle has been to help Americans who work for a living. Even if he has some quote somewhere about approving of "trade," becuase he's only ever been motivated by doing the right thing, it's still going to make sense within his umbrella theme -- helping people who work for a living accumulate political, economic and cultural power.

I have no doubt that this is what we're going to discover happens with these candidates.

[anti-NAFTA]

8. Who the hell is Drudge?

I keep seeing his name mentioned. Is he some sort of rightwing smear artist?

[bluestateguy]

14. Uh, how old are you?

Do you remember the impeachment ordeal in 1998-99?

www.drudgereport.com

[anti-NAFTA]

17. I'm 18.

Yeah, I remember it; but I wasn't really into politics back then. So is Drudge just a rightwing smear-er?

edit: I visited the site. That this tabloid-worthy junk passes as news just goes to show how dismal the state of mass information is today.

[DaisyUCSB]

10. Dick Gephardt is on record saying he supports free trade

You think anyone is going to convince anyone he's a conservative or anti-union? No it would be absurd.

I'm not going to ever use the aweful, "you people are getting desperate" line, but I know if I used this type of "what if" against Kerry I'd hear it

[katieforeman]

13. This is easy for Edwards to handle.

I'm not a protectionist, I support fair trade. It's a moral issue. We should not be shipping jobs overseas to be performed by children. We should not be shipping jobs overseas to be performed by workers who are paid in pennies and must work in horrible conditions.

[PurityOfEssence]

15. You're worried about that when there are already huge pitfalls for Kerry?

When you play five card stud, are you scared of your opponent filling an inside straight when you're holding a flush?

How is Kerry going to answer for voting against the '91 Gulf War? If his principal selling point over Edwards is his being a valiant warrior--which he absolutely is--then how's that going to help? There are things already out in the open that are going to be a big problem for Kerry; why should it be more worrisome that something MIGHT come up to trip up Edwards?