Reply #73: Thank you for the time and effort in communicating your thoughts.

[krkaufman]

Until he left the race, Edwards was my preferred candidate, as well, though I loathed his 2002 AUMF/Iraq vote (especially having failed to read the full NIE), largely for the same reasons you state. Edwards was the only candidate truly speaking to the root cause of our problems, and with the strength I've been longing to see in Democrats.

Sometime during the campaign, I heard Nader on The Young Turks quote Frederick Douglass, and thought it nailed JE's campaign perfectly:

"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." -- Frederick Douglass, 1857

I've taken a different PE (post-Edwards) path, but respect your choice -- however much I'm pained by it. I prefer Obama's campaign mostly because of its modeling of the Dean 50 State Strategy -- its effort to broaden the Democratic Party, leaving no states or elections uncontested, reaching out to independents and disaffected Republicans (I don't think anyone expects the 25%ers to budge, nor do I really want them on my side). Short of John's full frontal assault on the powers-that-be, the attempt to build a working majority (following the 50 State approach) is something I believe can work.

And I hear your comments regarding Obama's statements, and I appreciate your relating them, but, being a different person with different experiences, I have a differing impression of them -- but certainly won't presume to argue the merits of either.

Peace and respect.