A John Edwards Surge?

So noted Glenn Greenwald yesterday noting a Rasmussen daily tracking poll showing Edwards up about 6% nationally while Clinton drops and Obama stays about evenly nationally.

I confess that my own take was that if Edwards didn't win Iowa his chances were very slim. These numbers seem to indicate otherwise. Admittedly, it's quite clear that NH will probably go heavily Obama, and the historical pattern has been for that to translate into a further bump in the early states.

However, if I were Edwards and I was tracking similiar numbers to these, I simply would not drop out based on the early states, especially if the trend continues. And, while Clinton's numbers are clearly dropping (and, as Glenn notes, they are transfering to Edwards, not Obama) at this point, if I were her, I'd be worried, but not yet panicking.

It ain't over yet. Obama's got the momentum, but he needs to start moving those national numbers or he's going to hit a brick wall.

I find this very interesting because of the lack of coverage that Edwards has received in the media. He shouldn't be getting this surge, it just shouldn't be happening. That means that something about him and his message is getting through.

Perhaps it has something to do with the tired phrase "change", which this election is supposedly about.

Earlier today I read an article by Ari Berman at the Nation. In it Ari goes over the Clinton and Obama foreign policy teams in detail - 4 long pages. Edwards foreign policy gets one slightly dismissive paragraph:

The top Democrat who puts the least emphasis on foreign affairs and has the fewest number of advisers, John Edwards, has paradoxically said some of the most interesting things during the campaign. Edwards has called the "war on terror" a "bumper sticker, not a plan," and has opposed enlarging the Army, citing the "little rationale given for exactly why we need this many troops." Days before the Iowa caucuses, he more sharply distinguished his position on Iraq from those of Clinton and Obama by calling for a near-total pullout of US forces within ten months. However, in foreign policy circles Edwards's knowledge of world affairs is considered thin, and on the stump he's far more passionate about domestic issues like poverty and trade. His main foreign policy adviser, Mike Signer, was an aide to former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, and his longtime national security adviser in the Senate, Derek Chollet, is a Holbrooke protege and a fellow at the Center for New American Security, a centrist think tank working to align Democrats closer to the military. Both are relatively hawkish; Signer wrote an essay in 2006 calling for a doctrine of "exemplarism," which he labeled "a militarily strong and morally ambitious version of American exceptionalism."

Remarkable. Just remarkable - John Edwards gets one paragraph, even though Ari admits that the differences between his foreign policy and that of Clinton and Obama is much greater than that between Clinton's and Obama's. And the reason is probably that he doesn't have a huge board of "experts" to foist the Beltway's conventional wisdom on him.

Forget dueling foreing policy establishments, Edwards basic frame is far more progressive and forward looking than Obama's or Clinton's. He doesn't believe in a "war on terror" and he doesn't want to add 92,000 new troops.

As noted, Obama and Clinton get more time in the piece, and the guy who wants to stop the insanity isn't taken seriously. The US spends over 50% of the world's military budget and is losing two wars to rabble, yet Obama and Clinton think it should raise more troops? Does "good money after bad" mean nothing to these folks?

Both Obama and Clinton have "serious" teams, with "serious" ideas.

But Edwards has the ideas that make sense.

The US can't afford current policies. It's in serious imperial overstretch, massively in debt, losing its industrial base, maintaining an army whose effectiveness is extremely questionable and losing its technological lead in multiple fields. And the "war on terror" has led to a massive increase in terrorism--it is a complete and utter failure on every metric.

Any foreign policy analyst who was actually serious, as opposed to "serious" would look at this and not be proposing more troops; would not be suggesting that the "war on terror exists". But "serious" foreign policy analysts like Obama's and Clinton's are doing just that.

The US's foreign policy establishment is deeply sick from end to end. The Neocons are only the most gangenous extremity.

And John Edwards is the only one of the three proposing anything really different. The only one really proposing "change". Lord knows he's not perfect (the Agonist attacked his "all options" statement with regards to Iran) but saying the war on terror is counterproductive was the equivalent of saying "the emperor has no clothes".

And only Edwards had the guts, honestly and wisdom to say it. Likewise he is the only one of the three candidates not pandering to fear and the military lobby by promising new troops, logically asking why the US would need them if it's leaving Iraq?

So, today, I find myself slightly encouraged. There's an actual surge going on, and while it hasn't produced victory yet, it's showing promise. That surge is by John Edwards, the man who dared to say that the emperor has no clothes; the man who didn't hire a hundred "foreign security advisors". The man who doesn't want to expand the US army.

So, with all due respect to Agonistas who have other candidate preferences, I'm hoping this trendline continues all the way to John Edwards winding up in the White House.

Because it's time to end the War on "Terror" and it's time to stop pandering to the military industrial complex. And of the big 3 Democratic candidates, only Edwards has the eyes to see this and the guts to say it. Of the Big 3, on foreign policy, only Edwards is for "change".