I'll admit for a day or two I was a little shelled by the results in Nevada.  Things didn't go so well in Nevada for my candidate, John Edwards. But then something went terribly, terribly right in Myrtle Beach last night.  Edwards reminded me why I support him and, indeed, why I spend time involved with politics at all.  It's not because of horse race intricacies or keeping score on political pot shots.  Reacting to the increasingly personal and largely irrelevant back and forth between Clinton and Obama, John Edwards brought the debate back to what a Democratic debate should be about::

After seven years of Bush incompetence and malfeasance, with 70 percent of the country believing we are on the wrong track, every politician says they're for  'change.' But, of course, 'change' doesn't mean the same thing for every candidate.  Nowadays even Mitt Romney, the plutocrat's plutocrat, is unironically trying to sell himself as the 'change' candidate. (Self awareness is not a Romney strong suit).

When a word like 'change' becomes a political mantra like this, the word can be used as much to hide intent as to reveal. And that is problem for all of us who really want to bring the kind of 'change' that revalues work and makes the system in Washington work for the middle class.

Today John Edwards released a new ad in New Hampshire playing up his scrappy underdog image.  He also delivered a well deserved sharp counter attack to the Clinton campaign that reminded them to beware of the underdog indeed.

The counter attack involved some pretty low insinuations by an increasingly flailing Clinton campaign. The ad connected Edwards fight once again to the real underdogs in our political system, every day people.

Just got back from Derry NH, and boy are my feet tired.  Seriously.

Along with a group of three other committed Edwards volunteers I spent the day traipsing through one of the more suburban neighborhoods for JRE, spreading the good word about real change for our country.

They sent us to the big yarded long drive wayed suburban, though by no means rich, neighborhood, because, well, those were the only precincts left.  They had volunteers in every precinct in town, which we took as a great sign.

I can't say our results were typical of New Hampshire, in fact, I dare say they weren't.  But, they may be typical of the suburban middle class Democrats and independents in New Hampshire.  In fact, we talked to more undeclared people in this neighborhood than Democrats.

There's a lot of cross talk on 'unity' vs 'fighting' out there.  People claim that Obama with his talk of reconciliation and big tables is the 'uniter', while John Edwards with his populist stances against corporate special interests is just a 'fighter.' But that confuses a couple of different concepts, so let's be clear. It all depends on who one want to unite.

John Edwards is talking about uniting the American people behind his attempt to take on the entrenched corporate interests in an 'America Rising' for working people. Having the American people largely united on issues is a good thing.  Having the interests and players in Washington, or stakeholders, as they say, united together is usually a bad thing. As Matt Stoller demonstrates here:

It's a bit of a challenge writing a campaign diary on Christmas.  Vituperative attacks on one's opponents seem a bit out of place, while a treacly sweet Christmas piece is not likely to persuade anyone, nor is it my style.

So I decided to, um, borrow a bit from a well known source.

Ghost of Edwards Christmas Past

By now, many of you may have heard that John Edwards is the Son of a Millworker, whose parents had to borrow money to bring him home from the hospital. While I don't think it's the strongest argument for Edwards, in age where a 'very serious person' like Fareed Zakaria can argue 'identity trumps knowledge and experience,' it is certainly worth a visit:

"All Politics is Local" is one of those sayings the political press never tires of repeating, but ignores most its implications anyway.  Case in point, the plentifuland prominent coverage of Edwards endorsement by Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley, but no one seems to cover actual local officials endorsements.  The press did finally take two seconds of notice the Obama endorsement by the Mayor of Des Moines, since that's the city most of the East Coast press stay in while doing there Iowa safari. So it also seemed like a good time to highlight John Edwards' announcement last week of a list of 52 Iowa County-wide elected officials endorsing Edwards.

By now most people not living under under a boulder know that John Edwards is considered an "economic populist."  Unfortunately, the term is often ill defined, other than a sense of being on the side of working people and vague recollections about a Cross of Gold speech. For Edwards substantively "economic populism" means that he is committed to universal health care, to effectively eliminate poverty in thirty years, and supports Smart trade agreements that benefit workers here and with our trading partners instead of just corporations.  

I had the opportunity as a blogger yesterday to sit in  on a conference call by John Edwards about his plan to address hunger and food insecurity in America, which just last week was reported to have affected 37 million Americans including 13 million children.  John Edwards conducted the conference call himself, not some one from the Edwards campaign mind you, an indication of the priority the candidate puts on this issue.

I found the six point program, which was ably laid out by TomP yesterday, forward thinking and impressive.  And I'll get to my take on the plan in a bit, but what most struck me was the absolute and total apathy by the soul dead wretches in the media.  Given an opportunity to ask questions about a serious plan to address pain and suffering of 37 million Americans, they had not one question about it.

Paul Krugman has turned into a pit bull on the Social Security issue.  He just won't let go of Obama's use of the Social Security 'crisis' as a political cudgel in the Democratic primaries.

Good for Krugman.

"Entitlement Hysteria," as Krugman calls it, is one of the most effective weapons in the Republican arsenal to both attempt to shrink our social safety net and to prevent any further expansions.  Undoubtedly, one of the more familiar refrains against enacting universal health care will be that America can not afford another 'entitlement.'

John Edwards substantive criticism of Hillary Clinton's vote on Kyl-Lieberman isn't just resonating in the blogosphere, it's resonating in Iowa too.  So much so, that even the poll and FEC report obsessed MSM is starting to notice too.

I saw Elizabeth Edwards at a packed house party in Brentwood New Hampshire Friday afternoon.  At the start of the event Elizabeth gave a brief speech before fielding questions.

Among other things, she talked about the campaign's fifty state strategy and differentiated Edwards from the strategy used in 2004 and the one she's hearing from DC consultant types this cycle too.  In 2004 the strategy was the Gore states plus Florida.  This year many of the Democratic political class is looking to a Kerry states plus Ohio.

There are a number of different ways to judge the Democratic candidates, one, of course, is their positions on issue, or, what do they say they want to do.  Another way to judge the somewhat nebulous character issue, or, who do you trust.  Another way to judge is personality, or, who do you like.

Personally, I answer that John Edwards is best on all three of those questions.  But one question that doesn't get as much play as it should, is who is the best to build the Democratic brand and the progressive brand in order to affect the change we need.  We all know health care can't be enacted by just the President, nor can CO2 controls or card check or anti-poverty initiatives.  Here again, John Edwards is showing himself to be the best candidate.

If you look at Rudy's advisers, as TPM did, there's pretty much no escaping the conclusion that Giuliani is by far the most likely candidate to start a war with Iran (Assuming Cheney doesn't get to it first). 

This comes from MSNBC's Firstread, who cite "numerous sources:"

At 5:30pm Monday ET in Iowa city, John Edwards will get SEIU-Iowa nod and the endorsement of other state affiliates, according to multiple sources. The endorsement, which the Edwards campaign refused to comment on, is key because it means that SEIU members and resources from other state organizations that endorse Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (think Illinois and New York SEIU chapters) cannot help their respective Iowa campaigns, according to SEIU rules.

This isn't a huge surprise, it's already been predicted by labor insider and blogger Jonathan Tasini.  According to Tasini, other states joining Iowa in the endorsement,eventually at least, are likely to be California and Nevada (with New Hampshire possible).

Over at Working Life, Jonathan Tasini has some predicitons on how the SEIU state organizations are likely to endorse.  I don't have independent verification, but Tasini was able to correctly predict the Carpenter's and Steelworker's Unions' endorsements of Edwards and the Machinists and AFT's endorsements of Clinton.

Last night in Boston at a mid-dollar fundraiser John Edwards gave a fantastic speech.  It was one the loosest most charismatic speeches I have seen him give.  Many of the points and line were from his standard stump speech but there was a definite confidence and sense of humor in his delivery.

He also dwelled on the environment more than I have seen him do in other speeches.  The environmental section kicked off with with a good and true line that got a big ovation: "On global warming: Al Gore was right."

This isn't a direct quote, so we should take the appropriate salt.  But Marc Ambinder has a rather startling report on Barack Obama's private view of himself and his theories of foreign policy.

Here goes: