Centerfield

Kerry is on record as saying he was committed to reducing our troop commitment in Iraq to negligible levels within months of winning the presidency, and he made no equivocations whatsoever for unforeseen eventualities. I saw him do this in a local TV interview. This was at a time when he clearly viewed the political game as hinging on being as anti-war as possible.

So at this point I fully expect that Kerry plans to tack rightward on the war as soon as he feels the nomination is safely his. And that's why I'm NOT waiting to hear what Kerry says he'd do. Because he has studiously avoided it, and because I can't trust his views to stay solid if circumstances change. There is no reason whatsoever to think that Kerry would be steadfast in the face of adversity.

And this is why the reports of the Edwards surge say that his support is coming from independents while Kerry's is coming from democratic party members. Because independents by and large don't much like Bush, but are not willing to vote for an anti-war candidate. We can only hope the Edwards surge is not too late. Rememeber that each state does its primary differently, so if any of the remaining states don't allow independents into the primary or caucus, Kerry will win handily. That means Edwards is going to need to kick @ss in the states where independents have the power if there are remaining states that exclude non-party members. Anyone know what the deal is with allowing independent voters in each of the remaining primary states?

The rumblings I hear on his March 2 strategy say he is focusing on:

Ohio
Georgia
Minnesota
New York

He probably needs to win 3 of those to remain viable, and that will be tough.

I live in Ohio, and we have something of a semi-open primary -- you can declare for either party at the polls and request their ballot. I voted for McCain in 2000, but will vote for Edwards on March 2.

New York is a closed primary, but there are also some oddities -- apparently Edwards got on the ballot in all New York counties, while Kerry missed a bunch of them.

He has a reasonably good chance in Minnesota, I think ... and in Georgia as well -- though neither are a slam dunk.

The bottom line is that he really has to build his momentum. It has to grow during the next couple weeks.

No one get excited because I am probably not voting for him, but I am really impressed with Edwards. Some of the ideas on his issues page are really outside the box, and his positive message is very nice for a change. I really hope he does not decide to go negative now that he has a shot. The anti-NAFTA stance really bothers me. Could someone elaborate more on his postion regarding free-trade? He seems to be to smart to be an isolationist.

Brian,

I totally agree with your assessment of Kerry, and also noticed the sharp move toward Edwards from independents. I find this interesting because the scoop on Kerry was that none of the Democrats agreed with him, but voted for him because he could win. I never bought that because I think Edwards was the toughest opponent for Bush all along. It will be very telling about where the party really wants to go in the next few weeks. Kerry (more of the same left wing polarization) or Edwards (energy and fresh ideas).

I had a lot of respect for Kerry at first, although I disagree with him a lot. Now I have little respect for him. The man has proven to me that he is willing to do just about anything to be President of the United States.

Well the whole Kerry "I'm electable" song is based on circular reasoning. He tells people to like him because he's electable, but you need people to like you to BE electable. It's not a quality intrinisic to a candidate, it's a quality that is bestowed by the electorate. Somewhere else, someone (John Ellis?) punned of Kerry that "as soon as he starts losing, he's a loser."

I'm not especially troubled by Edwards anti free trade rhetoric because I think it's mostly populist opportunism. I've criticized Kerry for opportunism, so I can't give Edwards a pass on this. But my sense is that populist protectionism never comes to anything serious in terms of policy besides scattered panderist policies like Bush's PA steel interlude. The policies seldom if ever last. And since we don't have total free trade world wide anyway, I'm happy viewing this sort of rhetoric as economic saber-rattling as a prelude to more negotiations and treaties. Most countries still try to open foreign markets and protect large domestic industries when then can. In the end, it's more about negotiation than about principle, if you ask me. Your mileage may vary, tho.

I'm also troubled by Edwards' views on trade, but excited about the rest of his message.

I agree with bk that the trade thing is pretty opportunistic -- Edwards voted in favor of the China trade policy. I also agree that we shouldn't give him a pass for that sort of thing, while criticizing Kerry for similar inconsistencies.

I would also observe that the whole issue of trade, as it's now being discussed among Democrats, is not necessarily the traditional protectionism vs. free trade issue. They're arguing for something more amorphous they call "fair trade" -- which is an effort to include labor and environmental standards in our trade agreement. Only the wingnut Kucinich wants to actually abolish NAFTA.

As a general matter, I would agree with efforts to include basic standards in our trade agreements. I'm skeptical about whether they're enforceable, but to the extent they are, they're a good thing.

Check out the new USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll. In head-to-heads with Bush:

Kerry 55%
Bush 43%

Edwards 54%
Bush 44%

Edwards is only one point shy of Kerry, and Edwards is almost certainly the less well-known candidate nationally, which normally leads to lower numbers in these kinds of surveys.

Don't let the USA Today poll cheer you up too much, or take it too seriously, except perhaps as a comparison of Edwards and Kerry. The gap between Bush and the Dems could just show that Dems are getting all the election press right now, or that the pollsters asked mostly Dems. The lack of hard data in the USA Today article is suspicious. What's the error rate? Sample size? Respondee selection method? Polling method? And so forth. All of those factors can skew the polls mightily.

(Example: If you ask 500 New York City municipal workers face-to-face on their way to lunch what they think, the results will differ radically from those of asking 1,200 confirmed voters in Texas what they think over the phone after dinner.)

Neither CNN nor Gallup has posted anything to their web sites on this poll yet either. When they do, I'll take a closer look. Until then, it's just more propaganda as far as I'm concerned. I used to write these things--I know how they can be slanted.

Yeah, I agree that any poll, even if accurate, doesn't reflect what really will happen in the election. Who people think they like right now isn't the same as who people actually go to the polls to support.

The only level on which this is interesting is the "electability" factor that's been so central to this race.

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