John Edwards for President

On Tuesday, Democrats -- in California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Georgia and Minnesota -- will decide whether George Bush will be returned to office in November. The party rank and file has a rare opportunity to nominate a candidate who is not only committed to progressive ideals, especially to the struggle for economic justice, but to choose one who is also undeniably electable.

John Edwards is the best campaigner in the Democratic Party: Bubba is back, but without all the personal baggage.

Electability alone might provide justification enough for supporting Senator Edwards; it's all the reason that most Kerry supporters offer to explain their choice. For anyone looking for more than the un-Bush, however, Edwards has demonstrated the political savvy to have devised a brilliant primary strategy and the toughness of mind to have stuck with his plan through the ups and downs of a grueling campaign, a contest that at one time or another caused every other leading candidacy to fall at least temporarily into disarray.

Is he the greatest thing since croutons? Of course not. But he has a core of optimism that is remindful of Democratic heroes like Franklin Roosevelt and Hubert Humphrey, a characteristic that one FDR biographer called "a first class temperament."

Edwards is right to say that economic justice is the most important issue facing this country. And, though he may be lucky that his sunny disposition matches his program, he is also right that Americans are ready for a leader who can simultaneously communicate pride in his country and the determination to make it a better place.

What, on the other hand, aside from the untested assertion that he can win, has made John Kerry's nomination "inevitable?" Can he really beat Bush in November? If various Democratic constituencies are holding their collective noses as they pull the lever for a candidate for whom they feel no passion, how likely is it that come November the voter who is less single-mindedly anti-Bush will do the same? And while we'd like to think that on election day no one in his right mind will hesitate to choose any Democrat over Bush, why the rush to settle on Bush's replacement now? We have several months until the convention to decide what kind of leader we desire in his stead.

Does labor, for example, really wish to stand behind a candidate who favors free trade? Do gun control advocates really support a hunter who resists the idea of registering and licensing handguns? Will citizens worried about corporate greed and corruption really find their champion in the Senate Democrat who has never been happier than when sucking at the corporate teat? Do voters who think that economic injustice is our most fundamental wrong really believe that he and they are reading from the same account book? Will blacks warm to him? Will Hispanics? Will gays, if he continues to equivocate on the equity issue?

Even the groups who should be happiest with Kerry, environmentalists and death penalty opponents, must wonder in their darkest hours whether the Senator's rambling, passionless addresses and careful middle-of-the-roadism will best advance their causes.

Will peace advocates really feel properly represented by a candidate who offers as the chief guarantee of his electability the fact that he personally has killed people? Do those who favored Dean because of his pugnacity and his unequivocal position on the war in Iraq really see Kerry as the man to lead the battle against militantly right-wing majorities in Congress? For that matter, do they and others most aggrieved by U.S. militarism really look to Kerry to rein in Pentagon spending and bring the boys and girls home?

Although Kerry holds a substantial lead in the delegate count, the race is far from over, or it needn't be if progressive Democrats use their power to extract stronger commitments from the Massachusetts Senator on the issues they care about. Even though he faces an immeasurably tough fight against Bush, Kerry is already exhibiting a Mondale-like caution. When forced to, for example by the initial eruption of enthusiasm for Dean's anti-war rhetoric, Kerry can be made to take a strong position. Mostly, though, since winning in Iowa and New Hampshire, he has kept his nose to the yellow stripe down the middle of the road, the final destination of dead skunks and most Democratic presidential nominees.

You also have to worry whether, despite his vaunted war record and his undeniable courage in opposing the Vietnam war when he returned home, Kerry has the grit to stand up to the current strain of GOP ruthlessness and cynicism. In Wisconsin, he allowed mild criticism from Edwards to unsettle him. How will react to whatever Karl Rove has up his dirty sleeve?

The Kerry campaign naturally hopes the race will be wrapped up with a big win on Tuesday. But is this really the best potential outcome, for the party and especially for progressives? One benefit of the longer-than-usual primary campaign, especially now that the negative Dean, Clark and Lieberman candidacies have been silenced, has been to encourage the news media to focus, however reluctantly, on Democratic alternatives to Bush. The longer the race is undecided the longer before television news can turn its mondaine eye fully to errant nipples and car chases. With the two leading Democratic candidates concentrating their fire on Bush instead of on each other, the President is not getting the free ride usually afforded the incumbent at this stage of a campaign. And the longer the Democrats take to decide on the target they will offer, the longer will it take the Republican artillery to concentrate its fire.

Some progressives, especially those most galled by the war or gulled by his New Age palaver, plan to vote for Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Ironically, this "protest" vote will be cast by many of the same illuminati outraged that a few apostate Democrats might "throw their votes away" on Ralph Nader. Others, disheartened by Dean's withdrawal, are planning to cast their ballots for the former Governor anyway. All to the good. Non-Kerry delegates to the convention are more likely to fight hard for strong planks in the party platform on issues such as economic justice, militarism, minority rights, health care, corporate responsibility, gun control, etc., than are either cautious Kerry or the party regulars who by the time the donkey-train arrives at South Station will surely once again have the party machinery gripped tightly in their dead hands.

There'll be plenty of time after the convention to unite behind the nominee. Now is when we have the final chance to make the party understand that it must be the embodiment the nation's aspirations if it is to prevail.

More than votes for Kucinich or Dean, an endorsement of Edwards will secure real change in the party. If he wins even a few states, the campaign goes on. Were he to win a lot of them, the race would be transformed. A negative, fearful throw-the-bums-out undertone would be replaced by the upbeat cadence of a political crusade, marching into battle for a better America, not just for one that's less bad.

Even though the likelihood of Edward's overcoming Kerry is slim, the chance remains alive and should not be casually abandoned. Win or lose, a vote for Edwards sends to the Kerry campaign the message, as would ballots cast for Kucinich and Dean, that this time Democrat voters want more than business-as-usual.

Come November, we can vote against the President. Tuesday we still have time to voice our support for a leader, one who has made economic justice the center of his endeavor, a great campaigner who can make the most hardened observer of our political enterprise believe in a better, fairer America, who connects with something in each of us that makes us feel good about ourselves as Democrats and citizens, and...and we all agree this is the crux of the matter..who can win.