This is going to be a very short diary, because I don't have time to write a long one. Deal.
I went out last night with a few friends that I get together with every couple of months. They're young and liberal, but they don't pay much (if any) attention to the netroots.
As we sat over our glasses of wine and plates of pasta, the conversation turned to politics. The young woman next to me turned to me and said, "So who are you supporting? Hillary or Obama?"
I explained to her (and the rest of the group) that this is not a two-way race. I very much like Dennis Kucinich, I said, but I have serious doubts that he'll still be in the race by the time my state's primary comes around, so I'm most likely going to vote for John Edwards. And then I laid out my reasons why I feel that Edwards is probably the best option when considering leadership ability, platform, and the ever-mysterious "electability" factor.
My point? Edwards polls incredibly well on Daily Kos, but out there in the 'real world', he's a dark horse candidate.
All of your I-Love-Edwards diaries? You're preaching to the choir. Time spent trying to sell Edwards to the denizens of Daily Kos is time wasted. A plurality of us already like the man, and those who support other candidates seem for the most part to be so entrenched in their positions that you're highly unlikely to change their minds.
If you want to do your candidate some material good, you need to be thinking about how you can help the Edwards campaign reach out to all of those moderate-to-liberal Democrats who aren't plugged into the blogosphere and who are being told over and over and over again by the Mainstream Propagandia that the only two Democratic candidates worth considering are Clinton and Obama.
If you really like Edwards and want to support him, I think it's time for you to start showing up to help with phone banking and other non-netroots forms of voter outreach in your own communities.
In my humble opinion.
Thank you for your time.