There seems to be a pattern with Mr. Stein. His thinking gets lost in his text.

He poses the question HOW does a candidate change.....? and then proffers an answer to WHY does a candidate change.......?

His prerogative, but it makes the time spent reading the piece a waste.

I hope Hillary calls Edwards out on this latest bit of hypocrisy. God help us all if we end up with John Edwards as President.
The only consolation is that it is very highly unlikely to happen.

I can't believe Huff Po still lets this person post here after the last Enquirer peice.

Without comprehensive immigration most Americans, including most democrats and most Republicans are against granting drivers licenses to illegal aliens. It actually undermines immigration reforum and causes very real security problems for the federal government and other states and increases the possibility of fraud.

C'mon! It's Edwards - the country lawyer.

You don't expect him to take a position and stick to it, do you?

Last night I learned from Hardball that the nanoscopic (= can only be found on the map of the USA with an electron microscope) state of Iowa has never during its history elected a woman for state-wide or national office. Never. If the Democratic Party has secretly moved into the 21st century, which I doubt, it will announce now that the Iowan vote will not be counted at the nominating Convention or ever thereafter until a woman from Iowa is elected to the US Congress.

I thought I remembered Mr. Stein wrote another misleading article on JRE. And low and behold, I found this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/26/edwards-mystery-innocuou_n_66070.html

I am not sure why he feels compelled to mislead folks. I must admit that I almost fell into the trap after only a cursory read of the headline and the article.

I believe JRE still is the best chance for significant change in the corporate-terrorist
run government under which we've all suffered for the past several decades, dating back to the Gipper, actually. I guess Mr. Stein must be a Rupert Murdoch type guy. I will remember to just ignore his future articles. He has demonstrated his dislike for the Edwards campaign by consistently misrepresenting Mr. Edwards views. (The Miserable bastard!) Giordy

I hope nobody reading this article thinks that Iowans are right-wingers on immigration. The most popular position, with 67% according to the poll, is "illegal immigrants who are already in the country should be allowed to become US citizens", rather than sending them back where they came from.

That's a pretty liberal position, and it's also consistently been Edwards's position.

But I disagree with him on driver's licenses. Every driver on the road should be required to have a license. It's a policing issue, not a "privilege."

And if he is moving to the right on this issue, don't blame Iowa. Remember he's campaigning just as hard in South Carolina.

"Sixty-seven percent, according to a recent poll, prefer to "allow undocumented immigrants to become citizens if they meet criteria."

First, in matters of journalistic 'fairness', Senator Dodd stated that he was against undocumented immigrants being able to get state drivers licenses, which is not necessarily a 'liberal standpoint' on illegal immigration.

I'm part of that 67%, but lets be perfectly clear that, in matters of national security, 'undocumented' immigrants should not be able to get state drivers licenses. If undocumented immigrants 'come out of the shadows' and get documented, leading towards possible citizenship, I'm all for them getting a state drivers license.

Hillary Clinton 'claims' that she will be tough in national security matters, but when you support undocumented immigrants getting state drivers licenses, you aren't strong in national security matters, you are weak.

In matters of national security we must not only better guard our porous borders in the south, we must equally guard our borders to the north. Had George W. Bush not dragged us into an unnecessary war in Iraq, state national guards all along the borders -- as well as along coastal states -- would be able to better safeguard American citizens against possible terrorist acts in our nation.

I saw that 'complete' ABC Sunday morning segment with John Edwards. I strongly believe that John Edwards is showing that he truly cares about the security of ALL Americans, and this is yet another reason why I AM voting for Senator Edwards.

Not all of us fit into a left-right mold. I'm pretty progressive on most things, (abortion, gay rights, etc.) but I can't help but be on the side of LAW-ABIDING would-be immigrants who fill out their paperwork, jump through the hopps, and then wait. And wait some more. Why should the law-breakers be rewarded? if we don't get tough on this, you'll see an ever-increasing flood of people who say "why should we bother? it doesn't matter, let's just sneak in...nobody really cares"

Well, *I* care. I don't mind my tax dollars going for the poor, those without healthcare, etc. but they better have a right to be here. So there.

This is an obvious case of flip-flopping. In the debate, Tim Russert ask to the candidates to raise their hands if they oppose the Spitzer plan.
THE ONLY CANDIDATE WHO RAISED IS HAND THAT NIGHT WAS CHRIS DODD.
So John Edwards a few days later has changed his mind. He is now doing exactly was he is accusing Senator Clinton of doing, double-talk and flip-flopping.

This notion of protecting your language and your culture is just stupid. Languages and cultures evolve. There is no way to change that and no way to stop it. Plenty of countries, a few of which still exist today, have tried it and even with the best efforts have failed. Sure, many cultures and languages have lasted very long times but certainly not in the same form. Read any good hieroglyphs lately?

Protecting transient ideas is a waste of time. The real issue is that of safety. Preventing people from living outside the law and outside of health care causes far more problems than possibility that I might have to learn a little Spanish to be able to run errands. Specifically, you can't allow people to be infected by communicable diseases that can be stopped. You are just endangering yourself if you do. You can't allow people to be complete unknowns in case those people happen to be criminals. Similarly, you can't allow to people to be mistreated or to be sick and die simply because they've taken advantage of a law we failed to perfect. Say what you will, but it's inhumane. Remember your stance on "illegals" the next time you download an MP3, accept a burned CD from a friend or copy a movie.

No candidate is going to believe everything you believe in the same detail. It's idiotic to expect that. For that matter, an issue like immigration is so vast and so complex trying to cut it and to dry it is equally foolish. Finally, out of curiosity, what part of American culture is strictly American? What have we created here that is in such dire need of protecting. Baseball and apple pie are both derived from other countries' cultures. We didn't create democracy. We didn't even create pornography.

Edwards is speaking with fork tongue. Hillary can't take an unpopular position, Edwards now panders for it and Obama stated clearly in the debate that he supports the NY measure and recently said that he knows that most of Americans are against di being issued to illegals but its a public safety issue for him and he supports it as a stop gag measure since there is no comprehensive immigration law. Difference between the canidates, candor and leadership. Obama 08!

The title of this article is bizarre. Edwards has not taken the "conservative" position. He has taken the progressive position. True progressives understand that if we do not stand up for the working people of this country, there will be no democracy at all.

The conservatives, Dems and Repubs, want to give drivers licenses to illegal immigrants so they can take over all the trucking jobs in the U.S. This is consistent with the Bush plan to allow Mexican truckers to work anywhere inside the U.S. Get truckers for $8/hour and destroy the Teamsters union.

John Edwards' campaign is dedicated to helping American working men and women. Spitzer, Clinton, all the political elites can talk all they want about driver safety, but that's simply absurd and a lie. Having a U.S.-issued drivers' license does not make someone drive more safely.

Let's say, for example, that we have a law prohibiting 10-year-olds from driving cars. But they're doing it anyway. Would you support giving them licenses? Or, to the contrary, would you support having the public employees enforce the law?

If we want to stop illegal immigrants from driving without a license, there's a simple way: if they're stopped for any reason, and they don't have papers, deport them immediately. Same with working without papers.

Our public employees do not want to enforce the laws. They keep saying we need to "reform" the laws, but what they really want to do is to bring in another 50-100 million illegal immigrants to further drive down the wages and benefits of working people in this country.

I'm with Edwards. And I am not a conservative, nor is he. It is a shame that anyone does not understand that ultimately being a progressive means standing up for the working people of your own country. Anyone who wants to represent the working people of Mexico should move to Mexico and run for office there.

It seems that sombody's ox has been gored.

It does my heart good to see more of my fellow Democrats finally seeing the bigger picture.
It was only a year ago that the term bigot was directed towards all Huffposters who challenged the Party-line.
Well what a difference a year makes. --got friends/relatives losing jobs to criminals?

Having lived in "border states" I see this stance as one more feable and unintelligent method of persecuting Mexican illegals, and not addressing the problem of illegal immigration as a whole. Further, it increases everyone's risk when driving on the road.
There are literally thousands of people who come to this country legally, on student or tourist visas. Some then chose to stay here illegally. Many foreign nationals rent or purchase cars when they come here. Drivers licenses, and subsequent car insurance, while not perfect, are the best ways to keep track of the whereabouts of these individuals, regardless of immigration status. Denying anyone the ability to have a license, and therefore register their place of residence, only makes it more difficult to track the whereabouts of an individual who causes an accident, and then has not only no proof of residence but no insurance either. ANYONE who drives, legal or not, should be required to have a license. We need to keep in mind that we found out a great deal about the 9/11 terrorists from their drivers license database, not through eavesdropping on their phone calls.
What would our stance be, if the EU were to deny the right to drive or rent cars to US citizens, since they aren't EU member citizens? This is a ridiculous place to draw a line in the sand, and I expected better of Edwards, Dobbs, and the other candidates who support this measure.