July 9, 2004

4:46 PM
Republicans for Ralph

As the saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows, and the efforts of some Republicans to help longtime activist Ralph Nader provide a perfect case study.

In Friday's San Francisco Chronicle, Carla Marinucci breaks down some Federal Elections Commission records and finds that nearly 10 percent of Nader's biggest donors have also contributed to the Bush campaign. The Chronicle reports that Nader got more than $275,000 from Republicans by May 31. Observes Democratic operative Chris Lehane:

"Folks supporting Bush because they want fewer environmental protections and less corporate regulations don't have a lot in common with the Ralph Nader agenda. The only thing they have in common with Nader is they want to take votes from Kerry."

Meanwhile, in the crucial swing state of Michigan, Republicans are collecting signatures to get Nader on the ballot. Greg McNeilly of the Michigan GOP told the Associated Press his party is doing nothing wrong and wants to ensure Nader collects enough signatures. His Democratic counterpart, Mark Brewer, views it as an "unethical trick":

"We're not out there focusing on getting Libertarians on the ballot. If the Republicans refuse to stop their efforts and Nader accepts their help, we will have no choice but to oppose his petition effort, review every signature and challenge his petitions if they are insufficient in any way."

Even Nader's new book is coming under fire - not for its content, but because its publisher is owned by Rupert Murdoch. While Nader denies any direct Murdoch involvement in the contract, Salon reports that critics feel (or say they feel) that the book deal makes the presidential candidate a News Corp. pawn. That includes Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union, a group opposed to media consolidation:

"It's a win-win for him. Murdoch's making money by promoting the book on Fox, and if Nader draws a strong audience, it may benefit reelecting George Bush, which would mean a favorable environment for further deregulation of Rupert Murdoch's media empire. As an entrepreneur, you can't ask for anything more; he's making money on both ends."

As he has yet to get on any state ballots independently (just the seven he acquired with the Reform Party's endorsement), Nader has refused to give back any money or turn down help collecting signatures. Today he defended his candidacy in an NPR-sponsored debate against Howard Dean, in which the former Vermont governor urged him to drop out:

"Ralph, I think you're being disingenuous about your candidacy this year, and let me tell you why. Forty-six percent of all your signatures to get you on the Arizona ballot turned out to be Republican supporters. You accepted the support of a right-wing fanatic Republican group that's anti-gay in order to help you get on the ballot in Oregon. This is not going to help the progressive cause in America."

While Nader downplays the role of Republican "supporters" in his campaign, running mate Peter Camejo gave a very different perspective to the Chronicle:

"If there has been a wave of these (donations), then that's something Ralph and I will have to talk about -- and about returning their money. If you oppose the war, if you're against the Patriot Act, your money is welcome. But if your purpose is because you think this is going to have an electoral effect, we don't want that money. I take no money from people who disagree with us. We're not interested in that."

- Jeff Fleischer

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4:11 PM
Bad credit

Steven Landsburg has a short piece on Kerry's minimum wage plan in today's Slate. To his credit, he refutes the old canard that the minimum wage increases unemployment -- and better yet, he does it without summoning up baroque economic models (think monopsonist labor curves). Basically, all those published studies on the adverse effects of the minimum wage are merely part of a larger subset of unpublished studies showing no effect. Moral: you can't always trust publications.

Good. But then Landsburg slips into this bit of misguided wonkery:

If you want to transfer income to the working poor, there are fairer and more honest ways to do it. The Earned Income Tax Credit, for example, accomplishes pretty much the same goals as the minimum wage but without concentrating the burden on a tiny minority. For that matter, the EITC also does a better job of helping the people you'd really want to help, as opposed to, say, middle-class teenagers working summer jobs. It's pretty hard to argue that a minimum-wage increase beats an EITC increase by any criterion.

This has been a popular conservative-libertarian line for a while, and thankfully Bush is so policy-averse that it probably won't come up on the campaign trail. But can we please do away with the myth that the EITC is somehow a shiny, happy replacement for the minimum wage? It's certainly not.

In the absence of wage controls, the EITC places undue downward pressure on wages. Imagine a Wal-Mart job that normally goes for $7 an hour. If the government is willing to subsidize low-income workers at 40 cents per dollar earned, then Walmart can offer the same job at $5 an hour, and workers will still take it, getting the extra $2 from the government. (In the real world, employers aren't quite as responsive, but the distortion still exists.) In fact, economists have found that this downward pressure really does occur. Historically, moreover, subsidies without wage controls have been an unmitigated disaster. The most effective wage policy, then, is usually some combination of the EITC and the minimum wage.

So there's no need to get cold feet. Kerry's good idea is still, well, a good idea.

- Bradford Plumer

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12:35 PM
Broken records

So much for finding out where George Bush really was during his Air National Guard Service.

The Pentagon just announced that it accidentally destroyed military records that could answer questions about a period when the future president was allegedly AWOL in Alabama. In a letter to the New York Times, the Defense Department said the records were damaged during a 1996-97 project to salvage microfilm.

Even the Times seemed skeptical as to why this destruction of records was never mentioned before:

"The disclosure appeared to catch some experts, both pro-Bush and con, by surprise. Even the retired lieutenant colonel who studied Mr. Bush's records for the White House, Albert C. Lloyd of Austin, said it came as news to him.

"The loss was announced by the Defense Department's Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review in letters to The New York Times and other news organizations that for nearly half a year have sought Mr. Bush's complete service file under the open-records law.

There was no mention of the loss, for example, when White House officials released hundreds of pages of the President's military records last February in an effort to stem Democratic accusations that he was "AWOL" for a time during his commitment to fly at home in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War."

Adding to the happy coincidence for Bush is that only three months of his records were destroyed; they just happened to be from the period when his service is disputed. And the Pentagon said it couldn't find backup paper copies. James Moore, who called Bush's service record into question in his book Bush's War for Re-election, told the Times:

"Those are records we've all been interested in. I think it's curious that the microfiche could resolve what days Mr. Bush worked and what days he was paid, and suddenly that is gone."

Sometimes this administration makes it really difficult to dismiss conspiracy theories.

- Jeff Fleischer

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July 8, 2004

04:34 PM
Balancing act

Since John Edwards accepted John Kerry's invitation to join the Democratic ticket, Republicans have worn themselves out in trying to tag the pair as among the most liberal senators.

Citing an analysis by the non-partisan National Journal, critics keep referring to Kerry as the Senate's most liberal member, and Edwards as its fourth most liberal. That ranking has already been regurgitated by conservatives from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to the folks at the Washington Times.

But, as always, context is important. And, as usual, the Bush campaign is ignoring it.

The actual National Journal results come from an annual vote-rating system the magazine uses, and it was only in 2003 that Kerry and Edwards finished first and fourth. As the magazine states in the February 28 article (link not available) providing the results:

"The fact that Kerry and Edwards had such similar scores in 2003 is striking, because during the course of their Senate careers, their ratings have often placed them in different wings of their party.

"Kerry has compiled a generally more liberal voting record. After winning election to the Senate in 1984, he ranked among the most-liberal senators during three years of his first term, according to National Journal's vote ratings. In those years -- 1986, 1988, and 1990 -- Kerry did not vote with Senate conservatives a single time out of the total of 138 votes used to prepare those ratings.

"Edwards, on the other hand, had a moderate voting record during the first four years following his election to the Senate in 1998. The results positioned Edwards comfortably apart from Senate liberals, but not so far to the right that he locked arms with centrist Republicans. His consistent moderation placed Edwards among the center-right of Senate Democrats."

Funny how even the Washington Times acknowledged this difference back when Edwards was merely a primary contender.

Based on their Senate service, Kerry and Edwards bring a clear balance to the ticket, whether the opposition research wants to acknowledge it or not.

- Jeff Fleischer

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3:35 PM
Edwards the liberal?

On Tuesday, when John Kerry named John Edwards as his running mate, National Review correspondent Byron York spat out a rapid-response commentary arguing that the choice would hurt Kerry. Sure, Edwards is a dynamic campaigner with a compelling story and an ability to connect with a wide range of voters, York reasoned, but he doesn't have foreign policy experience. Case closed.

Well, two days have passed, and the folks in the National Review editorial suite have shifted tactics. The magazine's brain trust has now penned an editorial conceding that Edwards "brings real strengths to the Democratic ticket." But, in typical fashion, the magazine twists those strengths to look an awful lot like liabilities.

He is an attractive figure. Voters seem to respond to youth, energy, and good looks. Edwards may also help Kerry appeal to centrist voters: Americans outside the South have a dated perception of how conservative southern Democrats are. Edwards's campaign speech, though centered on the idea that Americans who are not rich have little hope of making it on their own, somehow comes across as optimistic. So Kerry may find himself competing with Edwards over who can better excite the crowds. The competition may be good for Kerry. Edwards does not much help him win voters concerned about national security — but Kerry was always going to have to stand or fall on his own in this area.

The entire editorial is a world-class backhanded compliment. But, like York's less-than-deft attempt, the editorial is actually more effective in uncovering the fragile foundations of the Bush-Cheney appeal than in dissecting Edwards. York's ill-wrought rhetoric struggled to shoehorn the entire campaign into Bush's 'I am a wartime president' box. This new editorial plays the other fronts, citing Edwards' "strengths" to smear him. Edwards is a class warrior, a trial lawyer, a flip-flopper, and .... wait for it ... a liberal. That's right, we're back to the "L" word.

So, how should Kerry and Edwards respond? By running to the DLC center or embracing the liberal badge? Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive argues compellingly, if predictably, for the latter:

To win, they will need to earn the vote of some wavering progressives, and of a lot of working people who either don't usually vote or who get seduced into voting against their interests. Talking about class--and about "health care for all Americans," which got the biggest applause in Kerry's speech--is a good place to start.

- Will Tacy

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2:31 PM
Schily's List

Let's hope John Ashcroft doesn't hear about this.

As part of Germany's plan for fighting terrorism, Interior Minister Otto Schily announced Thursday that the government is creating a database of suspected "radical Islamists." Reuters reports German authorities are investigating about 150 cases involving alleged radicals. Considering three of the Sept. 11 hijackers came to the U.S. from Hamburg, Germany is understandably concerned about potential terrorists operating within its borders.

But because there isn't a clear definition of who belongs on the list, some people are worried, including Nadeem Elyas of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany:

"When you speak about Islamism, you have to clarify what you mean by it. We are concerned that every Muslim could fall under this catch-all term, which is unacceptable. We're worried that people may be caught up arbitrarily who have nothing to do with terrorism. By arbitrarily, I mean at the discretion of officials or authorities, which would be a violation of data protection rules."

Clearly, Germany has to figure out a fair way to implement the database without moving into racial profiling. But it's still a long way from the surveillance American intelligence agencies have long taken for granted.

- Jeff Fleischer

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2:11 PM
Thinking about tomorrow

Now that the suspense of John Kerry's "veepstakes" is over, armchair analysts have found a new focus of speculation - what John Edwards' ascension means for Hillary Clinton.

A Wednesday piece in The Hill argues that a "budding rivalry" for the next nomination is brewing between Edwards and Clinton, citing the opinions of unidentified "observers" close to both candidates:

"Clinton's allies, while enthusiastic about Edwards's selection and the possibility of knocking President Bush out of office, say Edwards will have no discernible advantage in a future Democratic presidential primary should the Kerry-Edwards ticket fall short of victory…Political analysts say Edwards will likely be Clinton's chief adversary, and vice versa, in the 2008 or 2012 Democratic presidential primary, assuming that New York's junior senator decides to fulfill the dream of running for president that many political observers ascribe to her."

The New York Daily News took a similar approach, describing how Edwards' ascension theoretically hurts Clinton's long-term White House prospects. In the words of historian Allan Lichtman:

"[Clinton's odds] go down about 60 percent because Edwards now becomes the heir apparent. This was not good news for Hillary. . . . Even if [Kerry and Edwards] lose close, Hillary now has a rival in Edwards."

Even columnist Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe pointed to a presumed future Clinton candidacy as one explanation for the lack of female contenders in the Kerry veepstakes:

"There is the Hillary theory. Those who care most about women candidates and are sucking it up this year are putting their eggs in the Hillary for President basket for 2008 or 2012."

Of course, none of this speculation really matters. Four years is a long time in politics (who predicted Bill Clinton's success in '88?) and the landscape could radically shift. And to her credit, Hillary Clinton seems focused on the actual election at hand:

"John Kerry has made a great decision for the party and for the American people, and has once again shown his tremendous leadership and conviction. Democrats and independent-minded Americans have reason to be electrified about the Kerry-Edwards team. After four years of the Bush administration and their attempts to divide this country, America is ready to have the strong, centrist and consistent leadership that John Kerry and John Edwards will offer."

- Jeff Fleischer

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July 7, 2004

5:20 PM
Welfare worries

"Campaign Politics Seen as Slowing Welfare Law." That was Tuesday's headline in the New York Times, blaming the holdup over the welfare reauthorization bill on petty congressional politicking. The Times, it seems, has no qualms about parroting Bush administration talking points. It was the same line used by Wade F. Horn, an assistant HHS secretary in charge of welfare policy: "Some Democrats don't want to give President Bush any legislative victories before the election." And President Bush himself has offered a similar explanation in recent stump speeches:

"It's stuck" and "there's too much politics in Washington on this," said Bush. "Congress needs to get the welfare bill to my desk. It's a bill that will encourage work. It will encourage compassionate programs."

There you have it: Too much politics and not enough compassion. It's a nice fantasy; the only problem is that it's not true. Congressional conservatives, backed by Bush, are trying to force through a flawed welfare bill loaded with over-stringent work requirements. Democrats have every reason to oppose it.

The 1996 welfare reform bill, signed by President Clinton, replaced direct assistance to low-income families with block grants to states, which were given flexibility to tailor welfare programs. In addition, each state was required to put at least half of its welfare recipients to work or into work-related activities. As the New York Times reports, Republicans are now calling for increased work requirements -- bumping up the 30 hour work week to 40 hours. In May, Margy Waller, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, explained why the stringent new standards are unreasonable:

This might make sense if there were facts behind the rhetoric. But states have reported engaging nearly two-thirds of all recipients in work. Why not more? There are always new people on the rolls awaiting assignment, parents temporarily excused to care for a sick child and the like.

Researchers find states need more flexibility, not less, to increase participation. And the cost of implementing the work requirements will cause states to reduce their spending on supports to working-poor families.

Still, such a shift might be defensible if there was evidence that it would lead to better outcomes. But there isn't any.

There is another glaring problem with increasing work requirements. Forcing single mothers to work longer hours would require an increase in child-care support. The trouble here is that the Bush administration has consistently sought to roll back child-care spending. Although the Senate defied the president and authorized greater funding in March, both the president and House Republicans have strongly opposed any increase in child-care money on the final bill. No wonder state officials are worried.

- Bradford Plumer

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1:00 PM
Bomb Iran?

The other big news out of Iraq today is that two Iranian intelligence officers carrying explosives were apprehended in Baghdad, raising new questions about Iran's involvement in (and designs on) the country. Most notable here is probably the conservative hawk response. Here's Andrew Sullivan:

The truth is that the "resistance" to the liberation was always formed around Baathists, Jihadists and Iranian and other foreign meddlers ...

It seems to me that the best reason for voting for Bush this fall is Iran. We know they will fight back soon. We also know that Kerry is closer to the "see-no-evil" French approach to the Iranian mullahs. This is the next phase of the war.

Oh? What exactly does Sullivan think we can do to Iran? Invasion is out of the question (us and what army?). An air strike on the country's nuclear facilities, even if successful, wouldn't exactly deflate Iran's expansionist ambitions. Even a democratic Iran would try to get some sort of foothold in Iraq -- we did the same thing to Latin America, remember.

More to the point, the "Iran hawks" have yet to explain what devious, catastrophic designs Iran has on Iraq (the case against the mullahs seems to start and end with their "hating freedom"). We know, for instance, that it's extremely unlikely that Iran is supporting the Sunni-based insurgency, regardless of what Sullivan says the "truth" is. We know that even though Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has ties with Shiite leaders in Iran, he has also repudiated Iranian-style clerical rule for Iraq, and is more of a moderate Islamist. We know that Moqtada al-Sadr has ties with Iran, but remains too much of a nationalist (as many Shiites are) to accept Iranian dominance in Iraq. So it's not as if Iran is sowing seeds for a puppet government. At the moment, the main Iranian goal seems to be to build broad popular support and forge friendly ties with whatever majority Shiite government gets elected next year. This isn't really the sort of thing we can thwart.

What can we do? As noted previously, one of Iran's most successful tactics has been to spend money on popular and visible public works projects. That's something we can and should try to match -- using that untapped reconstruction aid effectively to win a propaganda war. Soft power gets disparaged far too often, but does anyone seriously think that bombing Iran is suddenly going to be turn us into the most popular folks in Iraq? Or quell the insurgency? Or do anything productive -- at all?

- Bradford Plumer

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12:50 PM
Freedom isn't free

In Iraq, PM Iyad Allawi has decided to save the Iraqi people from their own dangerously free selves. From the :

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Tuesday signed the law of broad martial powers that allow him to impose curfews anywhere in the country, ban groups he considers seditious and order the detentions of people suspected of being security risks.

Under ordinary circumstances, I'd say this isn't a terrible plan -- lock down the cities, restart all those halted construction projects, and give the police force time to fully train itself. Then, after all is said and done and curbed, the U.S. can lean heavily on Allawi to relinquish his newfound powers. In other words, we provide the checks and balances.

Ay, but that's the rub, isn't it? Right now we have a president that cares more about Iraq's appearance than its reality. If martial law results in fewer bombs going off and fewer front-page media hassles, then Bush will likely think long and hard about keeping Iraq in a semi-permanent "state of emergency." It's not like secret detentions are that big a deal or anything …

- Bradford Plumer

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July 6, 2004

2:20 PM
God-fearing and Green

Today's Los Angeles Times includes an interesting article on evangelical Christians adopting a greener outlook:

Declaring that caring for the environment is part of following Jesus, a group of 30 evangelical leaders has agreed to work for faith-based environmental activism among the nation's most conservative Christians.

...

The low key but potentially pivotal move by evangelical leaders toward a wider engagement in environmental affairs comes at a time when 1,000 mainline Protestant, Jewish, Roman Catholic and Orthodox clergy from 45 states have been stepping up calls for another vote in the U.S. Senate on a bill that would limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Tally this up as more evidence of a glacially slow but steady trend towards evangelical progressivism. Or something of the sort.

Now I'm not sure if John Edwards is going to revive his "Two Americas" speech on the campaign trail, but President Bush might want to start thinking about the growing rift between his "two bases." As evangelicals show increasing support for emissions reductions, welfare programs, and other "liberal" measures, they seem to be drifting inexorably away from the small government ideology of the business community. Bush can't afford to alienate either group -- he needs the former for its votes, and the latter for its money. But can Kerry and the Democrats figure out how to capitalize on the nascent split?

- Bradford Plumer

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12:50 PM
Blaming the Spooks

Back when the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence began investigating how the Bush administration got it all so wrong on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, far-sighted observers concluded that the CIA was being sized up to take the fall. When spy boss George Tenet subsequently announced he would step down, that conclusion seemed suddenly obvious. And now, with the Senate panel reportedly ready to charge that the agency held back key evidence suggesting Iraq had abandoned its WMD programs, any lingering doubts have been cleared away.

The new disclosure comes courtesy of New York Times reporter James Risen, who apparently got an early peek at the Senate panel's soon-to-be-released report. That report, Risen writes, will disclose that the agency sat on intelligence suggesting Iraq had scrapped its weapons programs -- intelligence gleaned from secret interviews with relatives of Iraqi scientists -- all while President Bush "publicly warned of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's illicit weapons."

But, beyond confirming the panel's intention to blame everything on the CIA, what does this really tell us? What ultimately matters, of course, is how and why certain intelligence was held back, and whether the conclusions reached by the folks from Langley were the result of incompetent analysis or outside pressure. But the Senate committee was never really charged with considering these larger issues. And, to the extent the panel is being goaded into tackling them, it seems inclined to favor the least-explosive explanation, Risen writes.

While the Senate panel has concluded that the CIA analysts and other intelligence officials overstated the case that Iraq had illicit weapons, the committee has not found any evidence that the analysts changed their reports as a result of political pressure from the White House, according to officials familiar with the report.

How peculiar. Not a shred of evidence that the intelligence was distorted? Not a single mention of the Office of Special Plans -- the arm of the Defense Department set up by Doug Feith in 2002 because the CIA wasn't producing enough "useful" intelligence on Iraq? That seems hard to believe. Last fall, Seymour Hersh wrote a terrific account of how the Pentagon "stovepiped" raw intelligence into a workable form, in order to sell the case for war.

In interviews with present and former intelligence officials, I was told that some senior Administration people, soon after coming to power, had bypassed the government's customary procedures for vetting intelligence.

Among the people Hersh interviewed was Greg Thielmann, "an expert on disarmament with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research." Thielmann told Hersh that John bolton, the under-secretary of state for arms control, wanted a direct line to the raw data, without any CIA analysis.

In essence, the under-secretary would be running his own intelligence operation, without any guidance or support. "He surrounded himself with a hand-chosen group of loyalists, and found a way to get C.I.A. information directly," Thielmann said.

Hersh's report deserves to be read over and over again. So too, does this intensive study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which notes that in 2002, the intelligence community mysteriously reversed its cautious approach on Iraq's weapons capabilities and issued a strikingly alarmist intelligence estimate supporting the administration's most dire allegations. The dramatic shift "suggests that the intelligence community began to be unduly influenced by policymakers' views sometime in 2002," the Carnegie report concludes.

But none of this is being probed by the Senate panel, of course, because the investigation was hampered from the get-go. As Spencer Ackerman and Michael Crowley reported in The New Republic, the Senate panel, headed by Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), was always more interested in protecting the president than learning the truth:

The team investigating WMD issues includes three Republican aides and just one Democrat. Such is Roberts's idea of a "bipartisan" effort. What's more, at least two of the committee's GOP staffers are former officials at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, a focal point of the current controversy, creating a potential conflict of interest if they're called upon to investigate their own past analyses or those of former colleagues.

- Bradford Plumer

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10:28 AM
Edwards, Instantaneously

Okay. Are we all finished laughing at the New York Post? Can we get on with the business at hand? Sure, the Post committed the biggest journalistic gaffe of recent memory. Sure, any paper owned by Rupert Murdoch's misnamed NewsCorp makes for a juicy target. But John Kerry's choice of John Edwards is no joke.

Predictably, the pundits are out is force this A.M., desperately trying to be first to define Edwards' role in the campaign. And, predictably, the neocon nabobs at National Review Online are leading the ideological pack. But NR correspondent Byron York's rapid-response column on Edwards actually says far more about how conservatives hope to defend Bush.

Edwards won't help Kerry, York proclaims, because this election will be all about the war on terror and Edwards has no foreign policy experience. Never mind that Bush had even less foreign policy experience four years ago. Never mind that recent polls show a growing majority of Americans don't like the way Bush is managing the biggest foreign policy issue of his presidency -- the situation in Iraq. York still argues that Edwards brings nothing to the table.

Party strategists will undoubtedly answer that in the general election it is the presidential candidate who really matters, and that in the area of national security, voters placed much more trust in John Kerry. That's true. But given that the war in Iraq, and to some extent the larger issue of national security, will likely dominate the fall campaign, it's also true that Kerry has chosen a running mate who is extraordinarily weak on those issues that matter most.

Ah yes, the old 'I'm a wartime president' argument. While Vice President Cheney stumps around the nation trying to convince voters that the economy is recovering and that Bush' tax cut is the cause, York and other conservatives are running as fast as they can away from domestic concerns. Maybe that's because, with Edwards on the ticket, the Democrats finally have a more compelling and inclusive economic story to tell. Robert G. Kaiser, associate editor of The Washington Post, admits that he generally thinks vice presidential candidates make little difference come Election Day. But he concedes there are exceptions -- Nixon in '52, Johnson in '60. And the same could be true this year, he writes, "if we have another cliffhanger."

Edwards is an unusual politician. He has an emotional impact on people. He has the gift of empathy that Clinton had too, and used so well. Whether this is all phony I leave to you to decide, but our reporting has shown how real it feels to some voters. People really respond to the guy--some people.

My hunch is Kerry is hoping that there's a little Edwards Magic out there that will help mitigate his own aloof personality. Is that a workable formula? I'm cold, but my running mate is really warm? I don't know.

Edwards' charisma alone could make him a compelling contrast to the increasingly unpopular and phlegmatic Cheney. But personal appeal aside, Kaiser notes that the former trial lawyer's rhetorical chops may be his biggest asset, particularly when it comes to tackling Cheney head-on.

Can he turn directly to Cheney in the debate and say, you advertise your experience, but look what it got us--the worst-run war in modern American history, misleading "intelligence," the emnity of all our allies, etc. etc? Would that be an effective line to take? Again, your guess is as good as mine.

Considering the Republicans' desperate attempt to hold onto the Bush administration's supposed upper hand on foreign policy, my guess is that Edwards could deliver real votes to Kerry by taking exactly that line.

- Will Tacy

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