I am so unbelievably depressed. So now we are left with a scheming corporatist and a pie in the sky "can't we all just get along?" pied piper whose accolytes don't even know why they follow him except he's "change". And either one will probably get their butts kicked by McCain. God help us if we don't get more senators elected!

As an Edwards supporter, I'll be calling the Obama campaign and asking him to ask Edwards to be his VP. As well as putting him in a vital public position, it's the best way for us to see President Edwards in 2012 or 2016. It's also the best way for us to avoid a Republic president in 2008.

It's hard for me to believe that Edwards would do anything to help HRC. In South Carolina she put out some negative robo-calls that suppressed his vote. I'm told he and Obama have had a much warmer personal relationship and are on the same page on the corporate influence issue. He has said he won't immediately endorse but could endorse before Feb. 5. I hope that will be Obama. I can see JRE being Attorney General or leading the charge at the cabinet level on healthcare. And if he wants it, VP.

John Edwards added a unique perspective and voice to the debate on a number of vital issues. Hopefully his spotlight on the downtrodden and disadvantaged in our society and the fight against "big money" interests will continue to be advanced by Senator Obama.

Here is Senator Obama's statement on Edwards' withdrawal:

"John Edwards has spent a lifetime fighting to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the struggling, even when it wasn’t popular to do or covered in the news. At a time when our politics is too focused on who’s up and who’s down, he made a nation focus again on who matters – the New Orleans child without a home, the West Virginia miner without a job, the families who live in that other America that is not seen or heard or talked about by our leaders in Washington. John and Elizabeth Edwards have always believed deeply that we can change this – that two Americans can become one, and that our country can rally around this common purpose. So while his campaign may end today, the cause of their lives endures for all of us who still believe that we can achieve that dream of one America." --Senator Barack Obama 1/30/2008

I am sorry to see Edwards go (had the electorate been limited to just my family, he would have won with about 80% of the vote). If nothing else, he and his supporters can be proud that Edwards really changed the terms of the campaign. Edwards failure to get traction is partially a result of his success in forcing Clinton and Obama to move to the left in what they campaigned on. If he is willing to accept it, he is still well placed to be Veep or have a cabinet position (say AG or a newly created poverty Tsar).

I suppose it was inevitable, but I'd really hoped he would stick around through Super Tuesday. At that point, he'd have been through the primaries of about one half of the states. He really couldn't stick it out one more week? And if he'd followed his promise to stay on all the way to the convention, he could have kept the heat on the other two campaigns on issues they otherwise would rather ignore. Plus, he would have amassed enough delegates that he very possibly could have played the kingmaker at the convention, even if he didn't get to be the king.

So, I guess I'm an Obama man now.

"Edwards for AG!"

That's a truly great idea, but first the Democrats have to win the White House.

Damn.

I guess now I'm for O'Bama, because he seems like a nice Irish guy.

I hope there's even two candidates left by the time we get to May. If it's a done deal by then, maybe I'll write in Ken Kesey's corpse, which doesn't smell as bad as most of the candidates...

Black clouds settle in over the Team Billary HQ...

Essentially, all of the JE votes are going to go Obama's way. Not that there's a lot of them, but enough to make a serious difference in a close race.

Does this mean that he won't be on the ballot here? Kucinich, too? Anyone running as a progressive? I'm not willing to vote for Clinton or Obama. What's a radical like me to do?

Essentially, all of the JE votes are going to go Obama's way.

I'm not sure there's good evidence for this. Some pundits have suggested that at best Edwards' voters go 50-50 to Clinton and Obama, at worst Clinton picks up a majority of them. This race is very fluid, and I'm not sure we can know what impact this will have until after next Tuesday.

I see one of two scenarios:

• Clinton wins most of the big states, with Obama picking up a few medium and small states. The campaigns continue, but Clinton becomes pretty unstopable after a few more primaries.

• Clinton gets NY and NJ, but Obama scores a big win in CA. They basically split the delegates from Super Tuesday, leading to a truly competitive, extended primary.

I do NOT see how Obama wins a majority of delegates next Tuesday. I hope that I am wrong.

Now that Edwards and Giuliani are out, it's time to see what the blogosphere thinks of the 6 remaining candidates, using Range Voting, a voting method detailed in William Poundstone's Gaming the Vote

http://polls.zoho.com/brokenladder/super-tuesday-2008-presidential-poll

I will miss the voice of reason that is John Edwards in the upcoming debate. Damn. For those who might take a pass on voting, now that your candidate is gone, please put in the nose plugs and make the minimal effort to vote for the Democratic candidate in the general election. Otherwise we can be assured that the Repubs will win and our Country's bankruptcy will be assured with continued wasteful spending on Iraqi democracy.

I was talking voting in the primary--which I might take a pass on, but I'll still vote in the primary--just not for Hillary. I know this isn't popular among the Blue Oregon Nader Haters, but I'll probably vote for McKinney or some other third party candidate.

The New York Times is reporting that at his Denver rally today, Obama had his 10,000 supporters give Edwards a standing ovation.

With the proportional awarding of delegates I can see the Dem primary going all the way to the convention if it's close. Obama has been picking up steam nationally and in a number of states. Gallup has him within six just as of the last couple of days nationally. And the SF Chronicle has him actually leading the last couple of days in their Cal. tracking poll. Conn. went from a Clinton blow-out to dead even. Even in Florida, where the absentee ballots all went for Hillary the late deciders broke for Obama. It is volatile and the Edwards move makes it more volatile come Super Tues. The Edwards thing may just be a wash in this, unless he makes a firm endorsement.

oops--meant to say I'll still vote in the GENERAL

but y'all can probably figure that out...

I just signed up to volunteer for Obama. Go Obama! I'll miss John, though.

I was hoping for Edwards/Obama though I knew it was a long shot, but now I'll hope for Obama/Edwards. Given some of what I've read on the net I'm not as enthused about Obama as a lot of others, but I think a combined ticket would lock up quite a bit of the base.

I am glad Edwards ran. He has added a lot to the campaign.

Just heard a Dem from the south announce that he and others are "not ready" to vote for a Black candidate. We will see Tuesday how that plays out. But Steve: I agree with your take on Obama. He cannot risk putting forward policies that are more progressive than voters can stand. Not to be a broken record but Obama will be as progressive as Americans will allow. Let's be real. Why wasn't Edwards campaign successful?? No. Obamas supporters are not supporting him just because he represents some nebulous "change." It's not about naivete it's about possibility. I think Obama is sincere as well as smart as hell and that he will take us in the right direction. Toward peace. Toward justice. Toward equality. More? -- well that is up to us all.

It is a tricky equation. Yes, the Washington government only has so much power. The financial establishment and global corporations can and will stall changes that threaten their base. But when there is a broad concensus progress can better be achieved. And we can't underestimate the presidency especially after what Bush/Cheney has made of it.
Obama as president will speak to a broad swathe of the American public. And take us as far in the right (left) direction as we can go. He is right to emphasize bringing us together. A country divided against itself... you know.

1 of Kari's candidates down, 1 to go

Some comments (before he dropped out) by the only progressive presidential candidate (not Edwards) in the Demcrat (not democratic) Party (and why you Democrats are going to lose again):

http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20080106_a_conversation_with_dennis_kucinich/

"...corporations can move jobs out of the country to places where workers don't have any rights. They don't have the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike. So what see is that the Democratic Party abandoned working people, and paradoxically they're the ones who hoist the flag of workers every two and four years only to engender excitement, and then to turn around and abandon their constituency. This is now on the level of a practiced ritual. At least a biannual ceremony, or every two years. So you can see how pernicious this becomes when the minimum wage increase was tied to funding the war. That, to me, says it all. Because it is inevitably the sons and daughters of working Americans that are the ones who are led to slaughter."

"...what they're actually doing is unwittingly contributing to the destruction of the Democratic Party itself by saying that "these are the only points of view that we will deem acceptable within the Democratic Party." And those points of view are generally reinforcing the corporate mentality inside the party. And that's very destructive of the democracy. It actually contributes to the undermining of the hope for legitimate debate within a democratic society."

"Is it just coincidental that the only time that candidates were asked to put themselves on the line as to their position on health care was at the Ark debate in Iowa, where each and every candidate invited, promised, that they would not participate in a single-payer system. Ark being an insurance company, by the way. You know, think about this. An insurance company sponsoring a debate in Des Moines, Iowa."

"Impeachment would bring up the whole train of abuses that have caused our government to become less democratic. The lies to take us into wars, the eavesdropping, the wiretapping, the rendition, the torture, I mean it all becomes one piece. If people see the whole thing at once, it then creates a kind of awareness that will create some change. I have no doubt about that at all, none whatsoever. What's happened is that people just see bits and pieces and it is never being tied together. I feel we are losing our democracy to lies that took us into war, lies that caused the destruction of essential civil liberties, lies that are driving us into debt, corruption on Wall Street and a Democratic Party that has lost its will to fight these people."

"I think there has been a serious loss of confidence in the Democratic Party over the last year. It has been interpreted as a decline of confidence in Congress, but in truth, since the Democrats took control of Congress, it's a decline of confidence in the Democratic Party itself."

"So now the American people are being given a choice and, really you have candidates who voted for the war when they could have stopped it, or to fund the war and reauthorize it. All of them have voted to fund the war or reauthorize it. The war, you get to the point, where the war in the debates actually was given fours years life by having candidates Obama, Clinton and Edwards all agree that the war could continue to 2013."

"Sen. Clinton took a hard-line position against Iraq, and she voted 100 percent of the time to fund the war until the last vote. Sen. Edwards took a hard-line position to attack Iraq. He voted all except one time to keep funding the war. Sen. Obama said he opposed the war before it started. He gave one, single speech, got elected - and his voting record is identical to Sen. Clinton's in voting to support the war. How can you expect anything different? Even if Sen. Edwards says he made a mistake, if you look at the track of preparing for another war against Iran the same people - Sens. Clinton, Edwards and Obama - all said of Iran that "all options are on the table," licensing George Bush's aggressive rhetoric and preparations against Iran. They said that, each one of them."

"They [the Democrat leadership] console themselves on the myth that they do not have the votes, when all they have to do is tell the president, "We are not going to give you any more money." This is a basic civics lesson. The bill is made, introduced, it goes into committee, it comes back out, it goes to the floor, you know, eventually it can be passed. I will tell you how a bill isn't made. It is not introduced. It doesn't get to the floor. Since appropriations bills begin in the House, by the Constitution we can tell the president we are not going to give him any more money. He . . . has to use the money he has that is available to take a new direction that will result in ending the war."

Edwards dropping out is real disappointment for me. I agree with the commenter who said "he couldn't stick it out one more week?". Although all signs pointed to the likelihood that he would not have won big, I sure would have liked to see just how he would have done on Super Tues.

In my biz I speak with folks in all walks of life. I generally strive to keep politics out of my work space, but I've noticed a great diversity of people who've said they were liking Edwards.

So it's Obama for me now. What I like best about Obama is his ability to move, unite, and inspire...at least during his speeches. And we need that so badly. There was a Washington Post article on Mon. re: Obama's policy of NOT courting the press. But I did watch him on Nightline last night...a good interview which showed a more earthy side as well.

And reading his statement on Edwards dropping out gives me hope that there may be a slot for him in Obama's administration...if he is nominated & wins. If not VP, which can be a somewhat fluffy position (unless you're Dick Cheney of course)...well someone here said AG and that has some merritt. But Commerce, Interior, Labor, Energy, Health & Human Services....all would be a good fit for Edwards. I'd like to think as AG Edwards could kick some butt going after corporate crime. I'd pay for tickets to see that.

Edwards is a man of principles and passion. We need him as part of a new team in DC.

So I'm shoved into the Obama camp. Not very willingly, but I guess I'll have to see if I can work up some enthusiasm. If somebody wants the Edward's endorsement, they'd better figure out what progressivism looks like. Edwards barely made that cut, so don't bother berating me.

I've heard a fair amount about Edwards supporters going HRC, I have some trouble with that idea, but I suppose we'll see.

I attended the John and Eliz. Edwards events in PDX last year and throughout 2007 was leaning towards him out of the top three . He had inherent weaknesses, though.

First, losing VP candidates often have no juice and go nowhere they run for pres. after they run for VP (think Muskie, Shriver, Dole (in '80), Ferraro (who lost for the senate twice), Kemp (whose political career ended after '96) and Lieberman.

Dem. activists like flavor of the month candidates and usually only have room for one known quantity- this year it was Hillary.

Lastly, I think that Edwards destroyed much of his populist appeal with the three HHH's- haircut, hedge fund, and house (BIG one). He was always open to charges of being a phony candidate, and that didn't help.

Still I like him and his message and wish that he would have done better. Maybe he'll run for NC Governor someday.

Chris asked about names on the ballot. OR's filing deadline is in early March, and because Kucinich and Edwards have dropped out, their names won't appear. The only alternative (except for write ins)is to collect something like 5,000 sigs. to have them put on like the LaRouche freaks do every four years.

I do look forward to the day, in the not so distant future, when a candidate who has made fighting poverty his/her biggest priority becomes President. But I'm not sure Edwards was the best candidate, this year, to stop the grid lock in Washington.

Anyway, viva Obama. I just wish Edwards would quickly endorse him and ensure that the Democrats will give me someone to vote for in November. The idea of a war-hater like me voting for McCain makes me ill, and yet I can't vote for another Clinton (sorry Chelsea, but I'm sick of your family). Heck, maybe if Obama loses, I'd vote for him or Edwards in November whether or not their on the ballot.

That's too bad, Stephanie. The "kumbaya crap" that Obama is spouting is a return to the way politics were done in Oregon for many decades. It's what brought us the great progressive policies on land use, the environment, protection of public spaces, and so on. The rigid partisanship of today isn't getting us anywhere. It's time to try something different.

Sen. John McCain told a crowd of supporters on Sunday, “It’s a tough war we’re in. It’s not going to be over right away. There’s going to be other wars.”

Stephanie is dead on. Absolutely no more of that kumbaya crap. Vote McCain.

I just can't begrudge the son of a mill worker his success in life. Why is that a problem for some people? Isn't that what the American Dream is supposed to be?

And despite his HHH, he found the passion and the drive to bring Obama and Clintons to at least voice concern for the plight of American workers, and the stuggles of low and middle income. Will we now see their platforms drift right...toward the PAC money they're beholden to?

Bi-partisanship is another name for date rape. The Progressive message and agenda is the best way to turn the country around.

The masses are asses and the majority of people don't care about what happened the last seven years nor do they care that much about the future. They mostly live in the present and worry about their immediate needs -- paycheck, gas, beer. TV and the like. No vision, no change.

The Republican Party is the worst it has ever been and I have no use for people who support Bush or the GOP. Bipartisanship at this time in history is like saying "Well, you are a Nazi, but that's okay. You condoned murder, theft, corruption, racism, bigotry, torture and more, but that's okay. Oh, well. Let's just all get along."

Bullshit! Time for the kumbaya crap to go in the toilet. Time to take the country back from the Party of the Wide Stance.

<h2>Exit polls show people voting for Edwards all over the country. Suspended does not mean ended!</h2>