The race is over. Kerry's ready for them to bring it on.
So why bother with John Edwards?
Sure he's the best campaigner in the field, perhaps able to finally convince the American electorate that a populist economics is in line with their interests for the first time in 40 years.
But even more importantly, Edwards is also a Southerner. And beyond arguments over whether the Dems can win the White House without any Southern states, there are 5 Democratic Senate seats up for grabs this year. Lose 'em all, and we're looking at a filibuster-proof Republican Senate. Lose 'em all and the Presidency, and we're looking at permanent one-party rule.
From this week's New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040209fa_fact
"(Kerry) is plainly tougher than Gore, more sure of himself, less wooden. But outside of V.F.W. lodges he is hard-pressed to pass himself off as a man of the people, particularly in the South, a region whose support--or lack of it--has long been decisive for Democratic Presidential hopefuls. "On that level, Kerry's the same as Dean, a typical Democratic implosion device: Northeast liberals, they'll just get slaughtered," a former Clinton Administration adviser fretted. He believes that the Party's hope lies with Wesley Clark or John Edwards, the two Southerners in the race."
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"If a Democrat does win the White House in November, he may not be able to do everything he's now telling voters he means to do. After all, a Democratic strategist said to me over drinks recently, "There are five--five!--Democratic seats in the Senate up for grabs in the South. We could lose four. I think we will. And the Republicans could have a majority for thirty to forty years. Do you understand what's at stake? George Bush with no concern about reëlection, a filibuster-proof Senate, a G.O.P. able to raise a billion dollars a year, packed courts, government shrunk to whatever level they like, gerrymandered districts." A colleague of the strategist, who was a bit soberer, agreed. "This has the potential to be one of those periods in the country's history when a single party dominates for a very long time--unless we nominate the right guy."
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If this scares you as much as it scares me...
http://www.JohnEdwards2004.com/contribute