I honestly think he\'s having a hard time figuring out which one is worse.  That\'s been my issue with these two form a perspective way to Edwards\' left to say the least. Obama seems less awful on foreign policy.  But with his weird squishy stuff on health care and education (merit pay, sort of "open" to vouchers) and other areas (oh, he\'s pro-nuclear power), he\'s actually somewhat worse (amazingly enough) than Hill on domestic policy.  Whayever, it\'s looking like Obama - something i have thought going way way back...really to the 2004 Keynote Address. He\'s just too perfect for re-legtimizing the system (they hope) at home and abroad...they must have him. I  would think JRE would go with B.O. but who knows and it soon may not matter.

Is Edwards going to endorse a candidate before the show is over?

Frederic you don\'t have or at least present enough information to so quickly link seeing HC as likely un-electable to sexism!  In my highly liberal and educated (for what that\'s worth) precinct in Iowa City, Hillary was barely viable and had all kinds of problems finding support and it wasn\'t generally about sexism, actually.   It was about the centrist Clinton legacy, her war vote and her really really bad foreign policy positions more generally...and a sense that she just isn\'t a very compelling campaigner.  I heard these complaints from plenty of feminists.

One could just come to the judgement that she has elect-ability issues from looking at the match-up polling data, which shows that...she...has..(for whatever reasons, certainly including sexism in the populace at large) ...well...electa-ability issues.  Big ones. For better or worse. Rightly or wrongly, her negatives are just astonishing in polls. Remember, the system is not about fairness.

Anyway, her campaign may be getting ready to die.  Texas and Ohio are both must-wins for her.

Jackie, you hit the nail on the head when you said that issues and policy are not the primary focus  in U.S. elections.  That\'s exactly right.  It\'s a natural consequence of our 2-party narrow- spectrum Winner Take All elections system and our highly corporatized and commodified political culture.

Some of the tight-lipped defensivness with Obama\'s supporters is not because they know it all (thats a front) but because they know so little.  It\'s shocking how little of policy and issue substance many of them can tell you about their candidate. When asked why exactly they support him, they really fall short and fail to mention even the most basic (if rather small) achievements on his record or key aspects of his policy agenda. It\'s weird. If they want to support him in a serious way, they ought to look more deeply into policy aspects and move off the creepy personality cult. It\'s becoming embarassing for them that they are so swept away by Obamania with so little real knowledge beyond liking how he talks and that he\'s black and that he spoke against the war (from a fairlly Establishhment perspective by the way) in the fall of 2002 and so on.  They aren\'t doing their candidate any favors by being so clueless and caught up.

Maxim - you should tone it down about Gravel in my opinion.  His positions are better but seriously ...calling for people to get behind him in significant #s like you think it is going to mean anything at this point is on par with believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. It\'s just not real world advocacy. This is not fair but there\'s nothing fair or particularly democratic (or policy- or issue-focused) anout the U.S. elections system and political culture. Even a former major party vice presidential candidate and fairly centrist (especially on foreign policy) leading Democrat like John Edwards as deemed so left he had to be marginalized destroyed by the plutocracy! It\'s sad that its like this.

Mike Gravel is still running and he is completely anti-war. Kucinich and Ron Paul are not the only anti war candidates. With Kucinich gone, the only Democratic candidate left that is truly Anti-War is Mike Gravel.

For an interesting comparison of candidates, check out this graph

http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008

See where Mike Gravel is? Review his ideas...They are perfect for ZMag! Stop it with all this Hillary vs Obama stuff. They have no substance. I am sure many of you know this.

I really have to say that I believe that assuming Hillary is unelectable buys into some sexist fears (obviously not what Paul intended or even implied, just saying). A lot of people have pointed out that however much Clinton rallies the conservative base, she is just as interesting to urban women who tend not to vote. Energizing those who would like to see a woman President win could be her ace in the hole. In any respect, anyone who\'s not a rabid conservative is going to be disgusted with the Republican party.

At 41 I am participating in my first US election, having been sworn in as a naturlized citizen in December. My knowledge of the process is very shallow, as is my knowledge of American history. I voted for the NDP (New Democratic Party) in Canada, who call themselves social democrats (I suppose most people here would call them socialist), and who at the time wielded not inconsiderable power in parliament, though they never actually formed a majority government. Many provinces have elected NDP provincial governments, including my home province of Manitoba, and neighboring Saskatchewan, where socialized medicine (or single payer as it is called here) first began in Canada. My impression so far is that the political system here is very frustrating in the limited choices people have if they want their vote to count for anything. It seems like Americans are forced to choose the best of a bad lot. 

I attended a Democratic caucus in Washington state on Saturday. I will admit to caucusing for Hillary, although that won\'t make me very popular around here. I based my decision on a number of factors, some based on policy, some on personal qualitiies. I suppose I am used to elections where much more attention is focused on policy, and I was frustrated by both the lack of scrutiny given to Obama\'s platform, and the extreme scrutiny given to Rodham Clinton\'s wardrobe, tears, ankles, eyes, smile, laugh, husband, and daughter by the media. Because I didn\'t live here during the Bill Clinton years, I have no emotional baggage with regard to his presidency, and evaluated her campaign on its own merits. I am also deeply suspicious of any candidate who is being forced down my throat by the mainstream media, as Obama is.

I am so glad my husband (also a new citizen) suggested I come to this site and read what was being said here about the candidates. I had no idea that the Clinton presidency was held in such disdain by progressives here. I have had a lot to think about after reading the articles here, especially yours, and I will keep reading them to learn more. The only thing that troubles me so far about your writing is that I wish you would consider the idea that Rodham Clinton\'s despicable treatment by the mainstream media exposes a  dangerous and misogynist bias against not just her but all women. 

I am writing you this very long mail because of the comments you made about the other caucus attendees and how they made their decisions about which candidate to support. By the time of my WA caucuses, there were only two choices. I also live in an affluent area with many educated professionals. Obama supporters outnumbered the others by 3 to 1 at our caucus.  I agree that it is impossible to have a real discourse with them. They espouse the same platitudes that their leader does in his speeches. They almost all believed he had voted against the war, which was their only talking point beyond "Change." They were also very pushy and had to be reminded repeatedly to follow the caucus rules and allow others equal opportunity to speak. I must admit that I have an easier time talking politics with my Republic friends and neighbors than Obama supporters, though idealogically I should have much more in common with the latter. If I suspect someone is an Obama supporter I will not even mention the fact that I can vote now.

One of the reasons (besides some family connections and the observation that Edwards actually proposed to strengthen unions, which need to be strengthened, and the fact that Dennis didn\'t  run a  campaign in Iowa)  I let myself become sucked into a mainstream campaign in Iowa was that I really wanted to see the primary process from the inside: participant observation.  It was not generally a pretty story.  The way Americans make voting and other decisions is not a pleasant thing to observe.  It\'s based on the most superficial things you could imagine in many cases - and on rampant misinformation.

On other hand and more positive side, I was struck by how quickly working for a presidential candidate got you into people\'s homes and how fast the conversations went far beyond elections and candidate X v. candidate Y v. candidate Z  On specific policy and social issues many Americans are very progressive and for what its worth by the way the sense that Iraq was illegally occupied because of oil is a very widespread sentiment in working class households. 

But the progressive sentiments don\'t get meanningfully translated into any sort of serious policy options: few if any such options exist under the Winnner Take All 2 Party Narrow Spectrum system. 

Some people get desparate and want to buy into the notion that brand Hillary or Edwards or especially Obama is going to save them and make everything okay. It\'s sad.

With the Obama candidacy, there were something worse or different than just sad, A better word was CREEPY. I observed that his supporters were much more upscale and highly educated than Edwards\' and Hillary\'s and that they were really unpleasant and very "know it all"  (there were a few exceptions but not many). Of all the different Democratic presidential candidates’ supporters I canvassed in my role as an Edwards volunteer in eastern Iowa during the summer, fall, and winter of 2007 and 2008, none were more tight-lipped and hostile than Barack Obama’s followers.  During my many hours as a voter-contact volunteer, I would ask non-Edwards Democrats who they were backing and why and if they’d be willing to hear some brief reflections relating to issues and policies and why they might consider my candidate.  Obama’s folks were not interested and not willing. At all.

If the person I reached by phone or in person supported Richardson, Biden, Kucinich, or Dodd, the results were generally quite congenial. A polite and productive conversation would often ensue. When I asked why they were supporting their candidate, they took no offense and typically mentioned two or three policy areas where they felt he had a made a special mark or held special promise. Often I would determine that Edwards was their second choice – a critical thing to know under the rules of Iowa Caucus system. The results with Clinton supporters were more mixed but generally good-natured and similar.   

Things were very different with most of the “Obamanists” (as I came to call Obama’s supporters by mid-December) I encountered. The great majority of Obama supporters I spoke with seemed offended at the notion that anyone would seek to engage them on candidate differences. They did on the whole not connect on policy issues.  Many of them me left with the impression that they found something highly unpleasant and boorish – crypto-racist, perhaps – about daring to question their Great Leader.  

It was quite pronounced. One middle-class lady with a poster saying “HOPE – Obama ’08”on her front lawn became positively enraged when I asked her a simple question: “so why are you supporting Obama?”

Wondering if there was something wrong with my own approach to Obama’ supporters, I related my experience to other Edwards volunteers. It turned out that my encounters with “Obamanists” were commonplace. A staffer explained it to me in the following terms:  “oh, you can’t talk policy and issues with the Obama people. Don’t even try. There’s no discussion with them.  They already know everything.  It’s a cult.”

The judgment struck me as a little over-harsh but more accurate than not. The Obama people really gave me the creeps.

At the same time, "my" candidate had huge problems, especially around foreign policy.

Some people know that these people are scoundrals yet they want to vote for them anyway. They think thats what it takes to be a politician and or that protest movements and additional parties cannot accopmplish anything, albeit Edwards was somewhat dubious. A lot thought after Iowa Edwards wasn\'t electable never giving a second thought to how contrived "electability" was or who was actually worth a damn. Others have just bought into what media theorist George Gerbner called "the tv has convinced people that they\'re rich," you know plenty of stock shows and business pages about corporate interest, but union pages have been eradicated. One girl who told me she wouldn\'t vote for somebody who basically wasn\'t a scoundrel said that she liked "the way things are," meaning the comforts of empire never suspecting that she isn\'t a player or that it can all be pulled back revealing a different reality. So people are voting in a way they think is pragmatic, but its more just like banging your head into a brick wall.

Thanks for the link - will check it out now.

Paul: Yes, I agree Edwards is not at all in the same mould as Kucinich. He is probably slightly to the left of Obama/Clinton, though, and therefore slightly closer to U.S. public opinion on a range of foreign policy positions. That didn\'t seem to help him much, though.

Jamie if you can find if by googling or yahooing I recommend Willam Blum\'s latest Anti-Empire Report.  I think he has a web site called "Killing Hope" or something like that (could be wrong), but you should be able to get it there or somewhere else.  It addresses this very very issue of why so few people voted for Kucinich. I would not link Kucinich and Edwards too strongly on foreign policy.  Kucinich is the only substantively anti-war and even anti-imperial of those two.  Edwards was all too mainstream-imperial on foreign policy  - not different from the BaRockstar and Mrs. Clinton to a degree that mattered very much if at all.  My qualified support for him in Iowa (following along with an interesting last minute endorsement of sorts from Ralph Nader) was only about domestic policy and in my case largely about labor rights and poverty issues. Its interesting that once Kucinich was liquidated (a late moment in that came when he was banned from the MSNBC Nevada debate by leading imperial "defense" contractor GE [owner of NBC/MSNBC .how perfect]), the only substantively antiwar (actually anti-imperial even) candidate left standing was on the Republican side - Ron Paul, who is unfortuantely a reactionary crackpot on domestic issues. Sad to say, American voters do not generally make their choices on the basis of policy and the elections are crafted around matters of image, identity, market segments and product loyalties...stuff like that.  U.S. elections are mass market exercises to no small degree...like selling beer or cars.  It\'s sad but it works for the privilleged few and their corporate power centers.

It seems to me that, when looking at polls showing what public opinion in the U.S. really wants, the likes of Edwards and even Kucinich are far more "mainstream" than Clinton, Obama or any of the Republicans. And yet Kucinich and Edwards are both out of the race. Why is it that so few people voted in favour of these candidates? It\'s not like they hadn\'t heard of them, or that they didn\'t know (or at least have the gist of) where they stood on the issues, is it?

Furthermore, this is an openly Left Web Site. it\'s bad enough we have to cringe in fear at what reactionary kooks (sorry) might think of our language in the general political culture and daily life. But to suggest that one has to avoid GOP members\' "dismissal" even while writing at ZNet seems like climbing a bit too far up the heights of discursive cowardice! Obama has to try to get along with these folks as he\'s trying to win a Winner Take All presidential election.  But it doesn\'t take much to offend them and get "dismissed" does it?  It\'s enough just to politiely suggest (for example) and provide evidence that the nation\'s racial and class disparities aren\'t just the consequence of the personal and cultural inadequacies of those on the bottom of race and class hiearchy.  I know all about it. I have a long history of politely engaging conservatives on such matters and it offends them to no end --- especially when you politely provide overwhelming evidence. In any event, it would be pretty pathetic if people at ZNet thought they should be worrying about what Karl Rove or John McCain\'s uber-militarist supporters might think of our jottings even in our own blogs.  I mean, really:  This isn\'\'t the Obama \'08 Web Site - it\'s ZNet.

Greg,

We are in very different places on this.

I\'\'ll be  a little nitpicky: the word "service" should go when describing the execution of imperial tasks that tend to profit only the privileged US few while imposing costs that are spread across the whole of American society and wreaking havoc and destruction abroad.

I disagree on the Vietnam war history.  McCain will definitely be running strongly on his big "war hero" record, which will reflect and further the core messianic militarism of (a) the GOP and (b) the U.S. more broadly and this in turn is definitely related to Orwellian history distortion on the in-fact very recent and relevant (in any meaningful historical sense) and widely denied/suppressed record of U.S. imperial atrocity in SE Asia.  Our national political culture allows no real honest acknowledgemet of that monumentally criminal butchery (2 million or was it 3 million Indochinese killed and their country turned into a devastated basket case) but then obscenely obsesses about what Vietnam did to us! There\'s a direct and historically close relationship between that record and subsequent denial and the nation\'s current inability and/or refusal to acknowledge the Holocaust it has criminally inflicted on Iraq ( 1 million dead by some reputable counts - many more injured and displaced) --- a Holocaust that John McCain totally supports and openly proclaims his desire to extend for 50 or was it 100 years.  And of course McCain\'s great heroic story line is all about the great suffering he experienced as a noble American in a Vietnamese prison.  Sorry, we inflicted remarkably more suffering on the Vietnamese ...it isn\'t even close.  And our denial about that and other atrocities (it goes back to the founding the Republic and further of course) is a relevant part of our insidious denial of what we\'ve done to Iraq and why.

You must know that Zinn has totally rejected mass saturation bombing and is a dedicated true peace and justice activist.

We really disagree on this.

Mr. Street, I agree with your article and it raises some good points. But I must state that I find this particular line quite tasteless: "onetime carpet-bomber of Vietnamese children and current 100 Years Iraq War advocate John McCain." What does John McCain\'s service in Vietnam have to do with anything. And why frame his service in such a light? When introducing Howard Zinn in one of your writings, do you refer to him as a "one time bomber of German children"? In both cases, their military service is not the issue.

It is not my intention to be nitpicky or trivial. I just think statements like this supply easy ammo for conversatives to dismiss what you\'re saying when you resort to ad hominen attacks.

So I looked into open balloting. If I\'m not mistaken it involves two parties endorsing the same cantidate when the vote is not strong enough to elect your own cantidate. If it didn\'t make a difference they wouldn\'t have banned it in all but a few states. I\'d like to see how its working out in New York and other places its still legal, Progressive Dane is still strong I hear. One drawback might be from what I\'ve read It seems like it causes a small schism between greens and parties like the working families because it seeks to gain leverage with mainstream politicians by offering strategic votes while not placing much hope in third party cantidates at least on the national level. So it is interesting but it may be a better idea to support instant runoff voting and campaign finance reform in that these things will allow for viable third parties, perhaps, without catering to established parties. I think that the more united lefties are under some common strategy the more leverage we will have. I haven\'t been too terribly active in politics in my hometown of Springfield Missouri, but my wife and I are moving to Chicago next month. I\'ve made plans to attend at least three groups: a free-Palestine group, the Chicago Green Party, and the IWW. Hopefully it will be some good schooling.