Montana Maven's
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I don't vote until June, so it's easier for me than folks who have to vote today to make a decision.   The horse race could be decided by then and then I can simply vote for economic justice and honesty in what is really going on behind the curtain no matter who is the great and powerful Bloz on the screen.  If it's not decided by June, then lefties can take their concerns all the way to Denver.  Either way, it's easy for me to vote for John Edwards.  But it's also easy for me to vote for John Edwards, because my head and my heart tells me to.

Now Obama might prevail today because:
1. Though both Clinton and Obama too conservative for me, Obama is doing a better job of disguising just how conservative or, more accurately,  how Establishment  he is except for the occasional Reagan slip ups.
2. She can't speak as well and is an introvert so it is harder to see her thinking. 
3. She's a Clinton.  She should have changed her name back to Rodham and dumped Bill and struck off on her own.
4. She's a woman. (The female hatred that I've witnessed even among my liberal friends lately is very sad and also disconcerting to me. Have we come a long way, Baby?)
5. And Obama is displaying, as Chris Hayes on "The Nation" blog pointed out, some ability for Republicans to vote Democratic "just this once".  They don't have to "renounce" their party, just join with other Republicans and independents of good faith "to vanquish"those of bad faith i.e. "the lobbyists, entrenched interests, 'operatives'".   I tried something similar as the campaign manager  for a candidate in a  state house race and we did make headway in a very conservative county. "Vote Democratic ...Just this once" was one of  our cards.  

Now Clinton might prevail despite her husband being "The Godfather of this Crisis of Capitalism", as Glen Ford put it.
1. Because she's a woman. As much as Obama has tried to draw a wedge between the Boomers and the Millennials, there may be some loyalty there to what happened back in the 1960's and a sense of pride in "coming a long way baby." It hard to explain to young folks how women couldn't get their own credit cards, get a mortgage or renters insurance, couldn't buy birth control pills, and were always categorized as either married or not married.  Hardly self determination.
2. People are cynical and may go with the "devil they know".
3. She seems more determined this time to get the health care deal right and at least copied the Edwards plan.

Yes,for me it's easy. Neither one of these candidates had the open honest and transparent campaign of John Edwards.  He started out his campaign by declaring that Americans were tired of the lies.  He talked about Bush but it became clear that his campaign was about pulling back the curtain on our rigged system built on nothing but falsehood and greed i.e. the bad economic theories of Milton Friedman perpetuated by Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan and even more thuggishly by the neo cons.  And he was specific about it.  He wasn't vague.  He wanted universal health care and  a version of what Martin Luther King had called for, a guaranteed annual income, a living wage in order to eradicate poverty and make a more decent society.

Martin Luther King in his "Where Do We Go From Here Speech" and "Breaking the Silence" challenged the system openly and shared with us his journey towards a better America.  John came closer than any mainstream popular candidate to actually threatening the system itself by calling its bluff.   He never went nearly as far as the great Dr. King, but for a candidate in a conservative country,  he went far enough to invoke the wrath and the fear of the Establishment.

Glen Ford, in my interview with him that I will post somehow when I figure it out, said that Dr. King's political mind was no secret.  It was an open book.  http://ourmedia.org/node/381254He wanted to share this journey with the public, with as many people as possible.  That's what John Edwards tried to do on his feet because the press gave him no chance to echo any of Dr. King's ideas of changing this system for the betterment of the people.  Again, he didn't go nearly as far as Dr. King in naming the culprit, but he did take on the style of Dr. King in his attempt to let us in on his journey from conservative Southern white boy to warrior against the system.  His campaign failed, but his conscience seems to have been freed of the fetters of the caution and obfuscation of a politician.  He has reached statesman status through this long slog of the last year.  Johnny, I hope we hardly knew you and that you will keep up the good fight.

So of the Warrior, the Wonk and the Wizard, I'm voting for the Warrior.  I'm voting for John Edwards.

    

 

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