DL21C continues its phenomenal Road to the White House series on Thursday with Senator John Edwards, Democrat of North Carolina and the 2004 Vice Presidential nominee.

Thursday, March 22
7:30 pm at
Branch
226 E. 54th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Aves.)
E/V train to Lexington Avenue/ 6 train to 51st St

It's just a guess, and I haven't spoken to anyone at DL21C, but I'd assume this will be a mob scene. Edwards is positioning himself as the most Progressive of the top three contenders. A year ago, Governor Mark Warner - then the Not-Hillary of the day - drew a crowd of roughly four hundred; if I had to lay odds, I'd assume that Edwards will exceed that. So if you're planning to go, you might want to RSVP now, here.

There's probably going to be a Q&A, and I usually get to ask questions; leave suggestions for what you'd like to know from the Senator (and, if I had to lay odds again, the next President of the United States) in the comments.

On the web: John Edwards for President

Via Breaking Blue.

This comes from a brilliant diary on DKos, based on a beautiful column by the late, great Molly Ivins.

I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

Preach it, sister, preach it!

So according to all the media chatter, huge pluralities love Hillary Clinton, can't wait to vote for her in the primaries, and her inauguration a bit less than two years from now is all but assured.

Sorry, but I'm not buying it. The junior Senator leaves me cold on any number of fronts; issues, personality, record (Hillarycare, anyone?), and frankly, I'm beginning to resent all the manufactured hype. Talk to average Democrats, even here, on what The New York Times calls her 'home turf', and you'll not find much excitement, either. Where are all these people I'm always told can't wait to pull that lever?

If anything, there's distrust, apprehension about the electoral fallout (it's taken as a baseline given in most conversations that I've had that she'll lose; people are now worrying about the Congress), and frankly, a deep and growing irritation that she's shoving herself down our throats a year before the first caucus. People are talking, that's clear; but they're not talking about what a great idea it would be to send Hillary Rodham Clinton to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This in part, perhaps, because she doesn't really stand for much of anything but her own advancement, it seems. Sure, she wants to be President, that's no surprise; why, and what she'd do if elected, and how far you could trust her to implement the vision thing, nobody really knows.

If you're looking for Hillary's 'base', or 'home turf', look elsewhere. New York City ain't it.

After the jump: "Hillary" on SNL. Ha!

The lamestream media are predictably dismissive of today's announcement of a Presidential bid by John Edwards (or so it seems to me), perhaps because they've already decided that Hillary and Obama are the only games in town. My private theory to explain this is simple: journos are lazy, and 'Is the country ready for a black/female President?' stories are so simple they practically write themselves. Hence, they have more time to spend on expense reports and cocktail party chit-chat.

The real news, of course, is that Hillary labors under the widespread perception that she can't win/stands for nothing/will say whatever you want to hear/polarizes (one which I share), and that sheer politeness is all that is keeping the subterranean chatter about Obama's thin résumé quiet, for the moment.

By a simple process of elimination, that leaves Edwards as the guy to beat. Clark never quite caught on with the rank and file (for reasons which elude many), Kerry had his chance (and has that unfortunate foot-in-mouth problem), Gore seems sincere about not running, Vilsack is in fourth place in his native Iowa, and Mark Warner, ah, Mark Warner. Biden and Dodd are lovely Senators; Richardson may be laboring under too-high expectations.

Ben Smith, spiritual godfather of the New York blogging scene, has a column in today's Daily News that's in need of a bit of commentary. Titled 'Why Hil can win in 2008 – top Dem pollster explores her path to victory', the article rests on interviews with, respectively, Hillary's pollster Mark Penn and an aide to John McCain, one John Weaver.

So of course, Penn says – as he's paid to do – that the numbers are moving in Hillary's direction, while Weaver – as he's paid to do – scoffs at the idea and gets in a dig about Hillary's implied honesty problem as well. I suppose that if you were to ask Bill Gates whether Microsoft produces a superior product, he'd answer in the affirmative as well. It might have been helpful, for the purposes of this article, to have, say, an independent voice with no stake in the subject to discuss it. That's assuming, by the way, that people care more about poll numbers than what the candidates actually propose to do, a subject which gets short shrift by the existing media culture.

In the surreal Presidential race now unfolding, two new polls deliver a much-needed reality check.

The Los Angeles Times has a new poll out, which essentially confirms the conventional wisdom about Hillary's electability problem:

Democrats have an overwhelmingly favorable view of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but she would be soundly beaten if she ran for president against Republican Sen. John McCain now, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

Underscoring the New York Democrat's potential vulnerability, the poll also found that Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican little known to most voters, would give Clinton a run for her money.

Given a choice between McCain and Clinton, half of those surveyed said they would vote for the Arizona Republican, compared with 36% for the former first lady. In a matchup with Romney, the poll indicated Clinton would win by just 6 percentage points, 42% to 36%.

The number that should really shock team Clinton is Romney's; a virtual unknown holding the best-known politician in the country to almost the margin of error. Interestingly, the generic matchup gives Democrats a 49% to 41% advantage over the other side, showing that the race is entirely winnable with the right candidate.

It seems we've been here before. Much as the narrative of 2004 was 'Anybody but Bush', the emerging storyline for 2008, on the Democratic side, seems to be 'Anybody but Hillary'. With The New York Times reporting on the junior Senator's efforts at shoring up her New York base for a Presidential run – side note: the rumor is that an announcement is expected on or about January 15th – maybe it's time to look at the opposition and its motivations.

The strength of this sentiment can be determined, interestingly, by the sudden interest in a Presidential run by Barack Obama. On the face of it, the idea that a freshman Senator with two years of experience would run for office is ludicrous. However, with the central dynamic of the 2008 primary, helped along by the lamestream media and their offshoots in blogdom, being the inevitability of Hillary, Democrats seem to be casting about for some, any, alternative. As National Journal said,

Too many of us have awarded Clinton the '08 nod too soon and too easily. The conventional-wisdom crowd is easily impressed by two things about her candidacy: money and her last name. There's also a dirty little secret that those of us in the media are leery to admit: She's good for business (particularly expense reports).

Political Wire announces the blessed news that John Edwards may be making a certain announcement shortly.

While John Edwards didn't announce he's making a presidential bid on The Daily Show last night, he did say this: "I actually do have an announcement, just between us. If people go to my website, johnedwards.com, in the next few weeks, they may see something new and exciting."

The Anybody-But-Hillary caucus is presumably overjoyed, as Edwards seems to be the man to beat for the role of Not-Hillary. And while I normally don't grovel, take it for what it's worth:

Please

Please.