My endorsement for Iowa: Edwards

Were I in Iowa, I would be voting for John Edwards. Since I am not, I just sent him a contribution.

Why? Well, there’s a few factors to consider. I think any of the main Democratic front runners are electable and I could enthusiastically support any of them. So, I’m making my choice based on policy.

On domestic policy I consider Edwards and Clinton basically a draw. Edwards is more populist but they have roughly the same health plan. Obama is good, but he’s lately been attacking from the right and his health plan doesn’t have mandates. I support mandates because getting healthy people into the system is critical for cost savings.

On foreign policy I’d considered Obama and Edwards to be a tie. Today, that changed. Edwards is now calling for a pullout of troops training Iraqis and pulling out most everyone by ten months into his presidency. I think we have gotten some good security progress in Iraq in the past season or so, but the Iraqi people still want us out and there’s been no political progress. Moreover, the security gains have come from essentially creating a soft-partitioned state which makes near-to-mid-term political progress less likely.

To be frank, I do rather hope America could have a qualified African-American or female president. I think both Clinton and Obama could do the job well and while merely bringing in an underrepresented group would not be a panacea, it would make a big difference.

However, Edwards is also qualified, is a frontrunner, and now has dramatically better policy positions. In the past in this campaign, the candidates have often been able to pull one another to the left. At the moment, and consistently in the past, Edwards has played that role best. As a result I think supporting him will get us the best Democratic President, whichever one it ends up being.

Comments

[Laura]

Have you seen glassbooth.org?

[Greg Sanders]

Hmm, just checked it out. Good stuff. It put me at 75% with Edwards and 73% with the other two front runners. Not surprisingly, I'm rather close to some of the second tier, but it's easy to run liberal when you aren't top tier.