If John Edwards stays in this race after Super Tuesday, it means one thing to me. It means that he’s banking on his ability to prevent either Hillary or Barack from getting to 50% of the delegates and forcing a brokered convention.

Does he somehow think that he could come into the convention at a fairly distant third and come out on top? I doubt it, though stranger things have happened. Does he think he can force some significant changes to the platform and possibly force himself in as Veep? That seems far more likely.

In tomorrow’s Times political memo, he asks What if Iowa Settles Nothing for Democrats?. I think the better question is: “How does someone this fucking stupid get a national podium like a New York Times political column?” I don’t have the resources of the Times and I’ve been posting polling data for a year that shows Iowa to be, essentially a three way tie. In fact, I bet some of the few of you who read this were probably grew bored with my insistence that Edwards really is in this race, especially when the national media has been emphatic to the contrary. Well, after a year of painting Iowa as the first step on Hillary’s path to inevitability, with occasional suspense building side notes about whether Obama might trip her up, it appears that the national media is being forced to reckon with the reality on the ground–AT LAST.

Sadly, I believe that even if Edwards gets the nomination, the national media is going to make it as hard for him to win the presidency as they can. They’re already looking to do the same hatchet job on him that they did on Gore in 2000. With Gore, the plan appeared to be to paint him as a boring liar for months and months leading up to the election. With Edwards, the script already appears to be to paint him as “the angry guy”. This set up then allows the national media pundits to talk about how America doesn’t want an angry leader and that he can’t win. It also allows some of them to paint him as a hypocrite in comparison to the equally manufactured “too nice to win” picture they made up about him in 2004. Some of them are already trying to use the hypocrite angle by saying that you can’t be rich and be an advocate for the poor. I wonder whether that narrative is just brazen dishonesty or if it arises from a complete ignorance of U.S. history

This is from an email that Elizabeth Edwards sent out to campaign supporters. I think the exchange between the two of them demonstrates precisely why we’re not just correct on the issues, we’re better than much of the right wing as human beings:

Last night I had an important talk with Ann Coulter and I want to tell you what happened.

On Monday, Ann announced that instead of using more homophobic slurs to attack John, she will just wish that John had been “killed in a terrorist assassination plot.”

Where I am from, when someone does something that displeases you, you politely ask them to stop. So when I heard Ann was going to be on “Hardball” last night, I decided to call in and ask her to engage on the issues and stop the personal attacks. I told her these kinds of personal attacks lower our political dialogue at precisely the time when we need to raise it, and set a bad example for our children.

How did she respond? Sadly, perhaps predictably, with more personal attacks.

John’s campaign is about the issues—but pundits like Ann Coulter are trying to shout him down. If they will not stop, it is up to us cut through the noise. Help us fight back—please give what you can today.

www.johnedwards.com/rightwing

You can read more about the exchange in this article at CBS News.

I have been letting my John Edwards news site and archive sit idle for the last couple of months. I’m back on top of it now and have posted a handful of recent articles. As always, if you’re interested in hearing about what’s going on in the Edwards campaign or how it’s being covered by the media, check it out. I plan to add another category to it where I’ll also be archiving the various email communications that come to supporters and potential supporters. I should start rolling that out in the next week.

This morning, I watched the CNN/Sojourners forum on faith and politics featuring John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. That kind of thing is not my cup of tea, but it was interesting. I think, a little to my surprise, that Hillary Clinton did really well in this venue. John Edwards was as at home in this kind of environment as Bill Clinton would have been. Talking about faith and its role in his life comes easy to him. Barack Obama came off as stiff and too cerebral. I don’t mean too thoughtful. Clinton and Edwards were both thoughtful in their responses. Obama had moments where it was easy for him to talk about that, but a lot of the time it seemed as if he didn’t really know what he thought about things and was trying to come up with the right answer.

I also watched the Republican debate from New Hampshire tonight. John McCain gave his best performance to date. I think he had the elusive quality of seeming presidential for the first time in this campaign. Some of that comes from the fact that he doesn’t seem to be pandering as hard to the primary voters. Mitt Romney continues to be the most impressive candidate on their side. I don’t agree with him on anything that I can think of, but he really comes off as smart and well polished. I need to find some polling data on how he’s doing in the south. I’m having a hard time believing he’ll do well in South Carolina, but if he does well enough in Iowa and New Hampshire, it won’t matter. The primary calendar is so accelerated this time that one slip in South Carolina may not hurt him. Mike Huckabee also continues to do damn well in the debate format.  If presidential candidates came into the race without already having been handicapped by the media, Huckabee would be a top tier candidate and Rudy Giuliani wouldn’t be.

John Edwards is doing a grass roots fundraiser tonight in San Jose. Tickets are $15. In the invitation, they rightly state that you shouldn’t have to pay $2500 to get to meet a presidential candidate and that this sort of thing shouldn’t be reserved for the sliver of our country with nine digit paychecks. I agree. I just wish the damn thing were at 6:00 or 7:00. You shouldn’t have to be a stay at home person or someone who can set their own hours to meet a presidential candidate either. The fundraiser is from 5:00 to 6:00pm. With freeway traffic being what it is down here, the likelihood that I could get out of work at 5:00 and even make it down there, get parked, and get inside before 6:00 is pretty tiny.

An interesting article at USA Election Polls shows that John Edwards’ numbers nearly double in the south if Al Gore is left out of polls. A lot of the folks currently holding out for a Gore candidacy will support Edwards if Gore stays out. The biggest effect is in the south, but Edwards gets a significant boost nationwide if Gore is left out of the polls. Edwards is probably the Democrats best shot at winning in the south. As we’ve seen in the last four presidential elections, Democrats need to take some southern states in order to win the presidency.

I’ll go one further than what I’m seeing in the polls so far. Let’s be blunt for a second. John Edwards is the leading white male candidate among the Democrats and he’s running for a job that’s only ever been won by white males. I think it’s a fair question to wonder how much of Hillary Clinton’s support and (perhaps especially) Barack Obama’s support in polls comes from people who think it sounds good to tell a pollster they’d vote for a woman or an african american, but who won’t do it when it comes time to pull that lever.

I have nothing more than my gut instinct to back this up, but I think John Edwards is Howard Dean’s candidate. I need to start finding a way to pay closer attention to things that may back this up. Edwards has certainly taken up a lot of the Dean 2004 campaign’s issues, the most high visibility one being Edwards’ stance as the most full throttle anti-war candidate in the top tier or even the top two tiers. The style and feel of this campaign and the way it is trying to create a community is very different from Edwards in 2004 and very similar to Dean’s. Lastly, Howard Dean took his campaign lists and used it to form a new organization in 2004 called Democracy For America. When Dean took the job as Chairman of the DNC, his brother took over DFA. Although they’re careful to stay neutral this far out, the DFA people seem to be very keen on Edwards.

Life and my job have consumed most of my time lately. I kept wanting to write something about the Edwards’ announcement, but couldn’t find the time to put anything together. I watched their 60 Minutes interview with Katie Couric. That left me more convinced that this guy should be our next president. I honestly can’t recall being as excited about the candidacy of anyone at any point in my life. After the interview, I signed up to give an automatic monthly donation to the campaign for the duration.

I’m still finding time to read the occasional article here and there, but I’m not finding much time to comment on them. This article on the GOP field almost entirely misses the point until the final paragraph where John Zogby is quoted. Forget national polls. Giuliani needs something other than memories of 9/11 to carry him to the nomination. His social issues positions aren’t going to serve him well in the southern states. McCain will have to run a truly incompetent campaign not to get the nomination.

Here’s an interesting piece on the latest attempt to create a power sharing government in Northern Ireland.

At the American Conservative Union’s political action conference this week, Ann Coulter called John Edwards a faggot.

The conservatives have nothing substantive to say about Edwards. They know that even though his message is a left-populist one it will appeal to many moderate and even some socially conservative voters.

I’m tired of the right wing fuckers using hatred for gays as a way to rile up their own base. The Edwards campaign is trying raise $100,000 in “Coulter Cash” this week to show that this kind of strategy will backfire, that everytime they do shit like this, it’ll rile us up and backfire on them.

You can see the video here. That same page also has a form where you can donate money. I just gave $50 and I really hope that some of you will give something, too. As long as we’re stuck in this paradigm where “money is speech” and often the speech that matters most in politics, then donating to counter this kind of crap is our most effective way to speak out against it.