John Edwards in November - "We need to break this wall down to see our America."
John Edwards in October - "Today, our economy is designed to benefit the wealthy and the powerful because it has been manipulated by the wealthy and the powerful."
John Edwards in August - "Will corporate greed be all we value as we move further into the global economy, or will we put workers and families first, so that all jobs pay fair wages, every American has health care and corporate profits work for democracy and not the other way around?"
John Edwards in July - "This fundamental unfairness is also at the heart of the Two Americas - one for those on top, the big corporations and a few very fortunate families, and one for everyone else."
As President Calvin Coolidge famously said - "The business of America is business" and our brilliant mix of Capitalism with some sensible Socialist ideas is what made our country great. The brilliance of what FDR started and many good Democrats continued was in continued respect for our Capitalist system while working to take care of those who could not take care of themselves. Business, Corporations, and the Wealthy were not the enemy but the productive parts of our society who provide and create opportunities for employment and help keep America prosperous just as much as the workers and other employees.
The problem with selecting populism as your overriding ideology, and make no mistake about it - John Edwards selected populism through pure political opportunism for no one had grabbed that flank yet, and he certainly wasn't a populist before - is that in order to ride that wave one has to abandon logical and reasonable thought and start framing everything in terms of Class War, majority against minority, the people vs the few, the mob vs the wealthy. It is an emotional appeal to majoritarianism that condenses complicated issues into mob anger inducing sound bites. It is simply a throwback to uncivilized times through ignorance of what makes our country great.
Fanning the Class War flames will not solve our country's problems no more than those great sounding Reaganesque platitudes will.
Both Clinton and Obama understand that the key is to work hand in hand with the Forces who drive our economy to reduce the inequality and bring us back to the more sensible economic policies without making unnecessary enemies. John Edwards is simply too much of an unnecessary risk. And a fairly fake one at that.