Check my comments history, and you'll quickly realize that I am an Edwards kinda woman. I'm not really sure how it happened. I was uncommitted for the longest time, and then I caught a bit of Q&A Edwards had with voters at a diner in NH it was, I think, and that's when it started.
I'm embroiled now, though, however slow I was to come to the Edwards camp. I don't even talk to my husband on the phone unless it's an emergency, but I'm planning to phone bank for Edwards. I am dedicated. Hell, I even wade into the candidate diaries these days!
Committed though I am, I always have to run through all the possible scenarios in my head. What if Edwards gets sucked even further into the black hole of mass media, despite his recent surge in media time (total of 3 minutes, 18 seconds in the last week, I believe)? What if Edwards doesn't do well tomorrow? What if Super Tuesday is Super Disappointing for Edwards and his supporters? Because, you know, everyone keeps saying he isn't viable. Some Obama supporters think he isn't viable. The media think he isn't viable. Hey everybody, Edwards isn't viable! What if he becomes even more unviable after February 5? My primary is February 12. What will I do then?
Honestly? I pretty much won't go anywhere unless Edwards calls off all us dogs and tells us to put our votes elsewhere. Still, I read the candidate diaries and the rec list (sometimes one and the same), and I watch the news and see Michelle Obama mispronouncing "Nevada" and Bill Clinton wagging his finger, and I think about who I'd vote for – in the primaries, I mean – if I don't vote for Edwards.
It's a tough call, really, fraught with speed bumps. So many things to weigh in making a decision about whom to support. And since every week, something new happens to add or subtract value to a candidate – with the exception of Edwards, who has remained pretty consistent, if pretty consistently shut out by the traditional media - this week, Clinton may be my second-to-Edwards, and the next week, Obama seems preferable.
Charts are the answer.
I sat down and I made a list of pros and cons for the three major candidates. I assigned a value to each pro and each con, and then I did the math. Here's what I came up with.
Uh oh. See, after the "crying" incident and the sandy-Vaseline fuckjob the media did on Hillary after – was it NH? - I was pretty sympathetic to her, despite having no great love for her before that. I started paying attention to what she was saying and how she said it. I briefly flirted with identity politics – we are both girls, after all. I liked the softer side of Hillary, frankly. After the "crying," I related to her more, because she seemed more approachable and human. One thing that worries me about her is that, because she is a woman in what is, unfortunately, still very much a man's world, she will feel the need to be tougher and harder (read: more hawkish) than she's already proven herself to be in order to keep her fellow lawmakers and the goddamned media from doing to her what they did after she "cried" in NH. So it was nice to see a little vulnerability, the good kind of vulnerability. More than that, though, she seemed more real and more connect-to-able. I found that appealing, and I contemplated making her my second choice after Edwards.
But then the post-Iowa ugliness began. And it just kept snowballing. And then Bill stepped in, and god, y'all, I just can't stand to look at the man. I think he was an adequate president, certainly better than twelve years of Bush, but even when he was president, I couldn't stand hearing him talk, watching him bite his lip and wag his finger. I'd forgotten about that during these last seven years. But here he comes campaigning for his wife, and viciously, smugly, and... ugh. Four or eight years of him being the co-Prez? Unpalatable, to say the least. But even before getting to that, there's the fact that he, and to some extent Hillary, are treating fellow Democrats the way you'd expect Republicans to treat them. Sorry, I don't cotton to that at all. My feelings about Clinton have soured pretty substantially.
But maybe Obama fares better than Hillary?
Better, but still not great. I was tepid about Obama, but after Iowa, I heard his concession speech, and it was so graceful and gracious that I thought maybe it was time to give him a closer look. But after Iowa is when the "Abandon ye Edwards, all who enter here!" diaries cranked up on dKos, and that punched a big hole whatever Obama warmth I might have been able to muster. I think he's a good candidate, but there's something about him that rubs me the wrong way when he's debating, when he's not reading a prepared speech. That, coupled with the Obama-Edwards wars here on dKos after Iowa, really put a damper on any enthusiasm I felt about Obama after his beautiful post-Iowa speech.
God knows, I wish him well. I've run into, frankly, far more very kind and reasonable Obama supporters here than the few who've left such a bad taste in my mouth. I think he would be an OK president, if perhaps one who plays it a little safe and who might pull a few punches with the rotten Republicans. If he's the nominee, I will vote for him, and I won't even have to hold my nose to do so. But he just doesn't excite me. I know he excites a whole lot of people, and I think that's great, both for him and for them. He just doesn't do it for me.
So what about Edwards?
Hey, hey!
I was pretty slow, even after hearing the Q&A that caught my attention, to throw my full support to Edwards. There was the matter of reconciling the Senator he was with the candidate he seems to be today. There was the fact that he didn't do so smashingly back in 2004. There was the fact that it's awfully damned hard to hear what Edwards has to say because nobody in the mass market will give him the time of day. (And beyond that, the narrative they were setting that sank Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000... even if he could get some airtime, could he overcome the media narrative of his being a nobody and a loser? And if he could overcome that and get the nomination, could he possibly beat the Republicans in November?)
I was cautious about rec'cing Edwards diaries, though I started reading all of them, every day, and the comments, too. The more I read, though, and the more I heard what Edwards was saying, the more I liked what I was hearing and the more I felt like he was speaking for me. An advocate – a man of the people – that's what Edwards sounded like, the more I heard what he had to say. And he seems to have real fire in the belly. He won me over. It wasn't even the hair that did it.
I had never made a contribution to a candidate before, but now I've made two (modest) donations to Edwards' campaign. I feel like he's speaking for me, and I feel like he'll fight for me if he's allowed to go further in this contest. Even if he doesn't get the nomination, and I know that's a real long shot, he's helping the progressive narrative simply by being in the picture. I honestly had trouble coming up with cons for Edwards when I was trying to think of them. I was trying to maintain some balance, seriously trying to come up with a reason not to support him, since there are some serious cons for the other two candidates, but goddamn it, Edwards is the man for me. Clear as a see-through window.
So yeah – unless he calls us off and tells us to go vote for someone else, I'm with Edwards. I'm with him tomorrow. I'm with him February 5. And come February 12, it's John Edwards' name I'll be punching in.
No matter who your chosen candidate is, good luck to you, and may the best man or woman win!