presidential nomination for two reasons: I thought he had the best set of political skills to wield against Bush; and he was the first candidate for national office since Lyndon Johnson to make economic class the defining issue of his campaign.Although he hasn't made an official announcement, it's no secret Edwards is running again.
He's got a lot of company. At least two Democrats -- Gov. Tom Vilsack
of Iowa and U.S. Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana -- have announced plans to form exploratory committees (an exploratory committee is a formulation that permits you a graceful way out when your candidacy fails to spark the least interest). It's likely that Vilsack's real goal 
is the job of vice president, especially since he is barely a blip on the screen even in his native Iowa. And you would think Bayh is too shallow for the job until you remembered who currently sits in the president's Aeron chair.The pundits have anointed Hillary Clinton as the front runner, in a replay of the scenario that succeeded in making Kerry the nominee in 2004. It looks to me as though Clinton peaked a year ago, and has lost ground since because of her too successful effort to blur
her position on every issue from Iraq through abortion to flag burning. Her obsessive triangulation is giving cynicism a bad name.The media have been trying to light a fire under Barak Obama, admittedly the romantic lead in the fantasies of many Democrats of a sentimental bent -- that is, at least during the few minutes a day when the aren't dreaming of the Revenge of Al Gore, but no one has come up with a believable scenario in which Obama wins. My guess is that his Wesley-Clark-moment won't last until the Iowa caucus, let alone to November 2008.
The former vice president will clearly be the favorite among
many Dems if he decides to run, but it would be a shame to trade the New Gore, outspoken and fun, for the old Gore, the overly cautious, wooden, rhymes-with-Gore who blew the race in 2000.It's hard to believe that Joe Lieberman and Howard Dean have given up on their ambitions (but it may occur to Dean that if he stays put at the DNC, he could be a kingmaker in his role as the national voice of the state parties), and it is unlikely we have seen the last of Rev. Al Sharpton, but it is
to be hoped that each of them has a kid around to ask pointed questions about their lack of clothes.For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that Joe Biden is also considering applying for the job; actually, let's hope he does run because, other than Dean and Kerry, who may be sidelined, the Delaware senator is the only candidate who can be relied on to contribute his fair share of gaffs and embarrassments. Also look for boomlets for people like John Tester, Bill Richardson, Bob Casey, Chris Dodd, Eliot Spitzer, and Brian Schweitzer as members of the press attempt to cycle through two years of non-news without repeating themselves.
Even John "Whack-A-Mole" Kerry, apparently as completely untethered from reality as the man he tried to replace, is thinking of another try, despite coming in dead last in a poll two weeks ago that pitted America's 20 best-known politicians against each other in a likability contest (a poll conducted, by the way, before the flap over his momentary lapse into candor over the prospects in the workplace of the poor and the under-educated).
For what it's worth -- after all, Kerry probably couldn't have won a likability contest in his crib with only members of his family voting, but he still somehow wound up the Democratic nominee....anyway, for what it's worth, the top Dem was Senator Obama, followed by Lieberman, Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Gore. Kerry was even outpaced
by the Bay State's lame duck governor, Mitt Romney, who is being short listed for the Republican nomination. Romney was 13th on the likability ballot, not much ahead of number 15, George Bush, the person thought to be the least liked politician until Kerry beat all comers. To keep this all in perspective, one measure of how successful such polling may be in predicting future political outcomes can be taken from the fact that Obama came in second behind former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a man who has about as much chance of being president as Peewee Herman.For his part, Edwards has been waiting for his moment. On Sunday last, he told CBS News, in the coy language of his cohort, that it was "safe to say I might very well" run for president, but recent moves by Vilsack, Bayh, Obama and Clinton will probably force him to jump in sooner than later.
After the Democrats lost in 2004, the Edwards family moved back to North Carolina. Elizabeth Edwards, his wife, had been diagnosed with breast cancer in the final days of the campaign, but after chemotherapy she is now free of the disease.
Last year, Edwards founded the Center for Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Law School. The organization focuses on one of his primary passions -- class disparity in America.
During the last year he has also logged thousands of miles traveling around the country, including visits to such early primary states as New Hampshire, Iowa and Nevada, racking up points in heaven by pushing for an increase in the minimum wage and collecting terrestrial IOUs by stumping for Democratic candidates.
Edwards has blunted criticism about his lack of foreign-policy experience by working with former representative and vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp as co-chair of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Russian-American Relations.
Clearly, although you wouldn't know it from the incessant handicapping on CNN and Faux, it is way, way, way too early to draw any conclusions about 2008, but John Edwards is positioned well to be one of the finalists in the next race for president. I still believe, as I did in 2004, that a John Edwards-Bill Richardson ticket would be almost impossible for the Republicans to beat. Let's hope somebody keeps Lindsay Graham out of the White House.
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John Nichols on Candidate Edwards: Version 2.008 in The Nation (2006-12-28).
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