After watching some of the last Democratic debate in California and the last Republican debate I noticed a stark contrast in the exchange of ideas. In the Republican debate the front-runners bickered like old hens about little details while Ron Paul added a sense of perspective and realty to their crazed warmongering. The Democratic side has silenced all voices of that nature by excluding Kucinich since the onset and to some extent Edwards as well. If Democrats are the party of ideas then they sure seem afraid of discussing them. How is it that the "fascist/authoritarian" wing of American politics comes across as diverse while the "liberal/progressive" side comes off as weak-minded and shallow?

The loss of Edwards as a potential candidate saddened me, the loss of his continued steering of the frontrunners toward sanity and important issues makes me even more upset. From here on out all we will get to listen to is "Obama brings 'change!'" and "Is Hillary too calculating?" for the rest of the campaign instead of what policies they are planning and how they will implement them. Add tot hat our only "liberal" candidates left are "Republican-lite" and my sadness grows even more.

If after eight years of Bush these are the most liberal candidates we are offered, it is clear that the political left is officially dead.

Hey, SG, I hope you did watch the debate last night. You got to see a pretty wonky discussion - well above the level of what you were expecting from your above comment. All isn't lost. There will continue to be a narrative and meta-narrative to try & sway low-information voters (and that will be true as long as low-information voters are a sizeable portion of the electorate), but there is also plenty of substance, including some substantive differences between the candidates. Not to mention, the narratives themselves have elements that rightly inform voting choices: who really will bring positive change to the political landscape and to the system? Who will back up their platitudes with meaningful action, as opposed to who will try to and fail, or who will just try to get re-elected? These are important questions, too.

Talking to a friend last night, he mentioned that there is apparently talk in the Obama camp of asking John to be Attorney General.

There's no way of confirming this, of course; but it stands to reason that there's a chance of it with Obama, but not Clinton.

I swear, though, if I knew that was true... I'd vot for him in a second. When i think about it, I think he'd be even more effective as AG than President, TBH.

SG, there is the um...internets...in one of the tubes you can find websites that have all the candidates policy statements on them. With that power you can be the agent of change by reading them and focusing the discussion you have with other to the points you find more important.

SG,

I am sorry, How did the Democratic Party exclude Edwards? there was one debate in which they excluded Kucinich but there were a dozen where he was included. Republicans excluded Ron Paul from the fox news debate.

Mike Gravel entire campaign is now Youtube videos about how he hasn't dropped out yet.

The Media has focused its attention on two candidates, but that isn't the call of the party.

I think you are hearing the difference between a one party trying to reach a consensus and another party tearing itself apart.

On NPR recently they were discussing Edward's announcement that he would suspend his campaign. The whole conversation was depressing, but what I remember most is the comment that "democratic primary polling results typically show no correlation between the voters stance on issues and the stance of the candidates they eventually choose." (paraphrased) In short, issues apparently don't matter in our horse race elections.

I've also heard this phrased as "Americans, with the exception of the very wealthy, rarely vote in their best interest."

I can't believe he's suspended the campaign and I haven't even had the chance to express my choice. What a demoralizing system.

I too was an Edwards supporter, and as a Californian I now have to come to grips with the fact that I won't get a chance to vote Edwards.

While it is true that the differences between the democrats are minor in comparison to those between the dems and republicans (as Hillary insists on pounding into my head at every debate) I don't know how much I buy the idea that John really had a lasting impact on the two left standing...

What you are seeing now is clearly, to a large extent, a scramble by the two to pick up the votes that John left behind, plain and simple.

While I'm calling bullshit on their Edwards support, I must say that the debate last night did give me a little more hope that Barack or Hill are more than just putting on a play to win votes.

Consensus=Facism, of course. Ideas such as universal health care, strengthening the middle class are (of course), weak-minded and shallow.

4/5 republican candidates being pro war, and one wingnut with any sense (and 1% republican support), NOW THAT is a visionary party.

To Randy, You can still vote for Edwards as I intend to do on Tuesday. I understand that it is not perhaps the most effective use of your vote, but the option is there. He is on the ballot.

The Attorney General offer is hearsay largely being floated by Obama surrogates and supporters in the blogosphere. Rather the more current thinking in the inner circle of the Obama camp is that Edwards might be the perfect choice to moderate the C-Span debate/roundtable over health care that Obama yet again mentioned in passing on Thursday night's debate in Los Angeles. Others think that Obama mentioned the C-Span roundtable in an effort to secure the Edwards endorsement before Tuesday. Any administration would be lucky to have Edwards play any role in any administration. To think that Clinton wouldn't want to include someone who represents nearly a fifth of Democratic voters is nonsense.

Edwards certainly has had a deeper impact on the policy positions of both other candidates than any other candidate in recent memory. The only other instant I can think of Paul Tsongas back in 1992 that put the Democratic Party in a position to talk about balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility.

I agree with Paul Krugman that Edwards' positions are closer to Clinton's. I noted that as much in my first letter to Norm, Edwards Or.

In full disclosure, I am a former student of Paul's at Stanford. I've been a fan ever since.

SG wrote that it is clear that political left of the party is officially dead. We haven't been the majority wing of the party since 1984. Rather than thinking us dead, we are more like an young adult. We are just getting starting. Poverty is not going to solved anything soon and certainly not with the either the Clinton or Obama approaches. John Edwards' plan was brilliant because it was a thirty year plan. To end endemic poverty, that is the necessary time frame.

The fact is that income distribution has been widening steadily since the 1960s. It was its narrowest in 1964 but even by the end of Johnson administration it had not changed much. The 1970s saw widening but it was the next thirty years that saw the gap widened significantly. The reason is Friedmanism, the policies and economic views of Milton Friedman, that the GOP adopted as its creed. While Clinton didn't exactly embrace Friedmanism with the relish that Reagan and both Bushes did, he didn't exactly repudiate it either. NAFTA and outsourcing are Friedman recipes. The point is that it will take the commitment of multiple administrations to end endemic systemic poverty.

A good indicator of comparison is Spain and Portugal after 1975. With the fall of fascism, both Spain and Portugal still suffered from acute poverty in both rural regions and urban centers. By pursuing policies that favored social equality both Spain and Portugal have set a floor that they will allow their citizens to live in. They have been more successful in tackling urban poverty but a few regions have been left behind. In Portugal, Tras os Montes; in Spain, Extremadura.