any definition of "populism" as a kind of perennial philosophy that excludes FDR and LBJ is so historically-bound and uninformative as to be useless. What were FDR and LBJ really, then? They thought of themselves as liberals or in the progressive tradition of the early 20th century, but 40-70 years later what would those words mean? That they'd be yuppie, free-trade New Democrats? I doubt it. What they did, though they didn't use W.J. Bryant/Huey Long terms, is now obviously despised by the right and much of the affluent center as outright socialism. Buchanan and Paul and Huckabee cannot be true populists, because they will really do nothing to curb the power of corporations or the Federalist Society fetish of Property Rights (Paul at least talks about withdrawing from imperial war and ending corporate subsidies but he's not really believable - what would he do about Hugo Chavez, for example?).

There is nothing racist or nativist about what at least Edwards wants to do (I think Obama just might too and Hillary, with her Eleanor Roosevelt thing, might end up wanting to be FDR-lite after all - who knows what's going to be politically necessary as well as conscionable during the economy of 2009?). In fact Edwards follows in the tradition of LBJ and both Roosevelts. If, similarly using an historical association as an essential definition, modern liberalism/progressivism has for now become too enmeshed in  neoliberal economics to speak to the needs of people who still have nominally sovereign nations with representative democracy where they get to vote, then populism seems like a pretty good word.