A four-day weekend, followed by VP announcement = blog-o-sphere heaven. So let’s get right to it:
Kerry’s selection of Edwards as his veep pick had Matthew Yglesias “thinking for a while that I wished Edwards had gotten the nomination instead of Kerry.” After coming to his senses, Yglesias laments, “The reality is that 2004 just didn’t put forward a really ideal Democratic contender, though you had lots of guys with good elements.” Although a Kerry-Edwards ticket, Yglesias reasons, is a “reasonable approximation” of an all-star candidate heading up the ticket.
Ultimately, according to Ylgesias, the prospects look good for the Dems because “in 2000 the GOP nominated an inexperienced, regionally inappropriate dude with no national security cred whatsoever who was dumb to boot, and they got away with it.”
Over at Oxblog, Dr. OxMom is smitten by John Edwards’ boyish good looks. David Adesnik announces, “MY MOM HAS A CRUSH ON JOHN EDWARDS: If middle-aged women with Ph.D.s are falling for the guy, who won’t?” Recovering momentarily, Adesnik backtracks a little, writing, “Then again, it is usually male voters that the Democrats need to work for.”
Virgnia Postrel signs on to the conventional wisdom that Edwards “won’t carry the South, or even North Carolina, for John Kerry.” But she does think that Edwards could “cost the Republicans some votes, as they misunderestimate him — and wildly overestimate the unpopularity of his profession.” Bush’s core of supporters (which she labels “Jacksonian America”) “loves trial lawyers.” (Wanna chew on this observation more? Postrel directs her readers to Columbia University J-school Dean Nick Lemann’s profile of John Edwards in The New Yorker from 2002).
As for the trial lawyer’s first appearance as the veep candidate, The Corner’s K-Lo isn’t impressed.”Even John Edwards doesn’t exude that trademark energy (so what’s the point?)” she asks. “If you are going to do pre-9 a.m. campaign appearances, get some No-Doz, Dems.” Plus, she’s got some issues with his Southern drawl:”John Edwards said at that Fox Chapel appearance, talking about the John-John relationship: ‘We served in the Senate together.’ Now, last time I checked, they were both still in the Senate, present tense (although attendance records might suggest otherwise). People of Massachusetts and North Carolina, take note.”
K-Lo’s political leanings pretty much rule out any chance she’ll develop an affinity for Edwards — though we think she should hold off any final judgments until after she’s had a sit-down with Dr. OxMom to go over the senator’s finer points.
Two weeks ago Newsweek inexplicably plastered “Spider-Man 2” all over its cover, and this week, amidst all the hoopla over the pending veep selection, Pandagon’s Ezra Klein notices that Newsweek dedicated the prime real estate to a pressing news issue of the day (not!), “The New Infidelity: From Office Affairs to Internet Hookups, More Women Are Cheating Too.”
Klein neatly sums up his thoughts on that one:
“You’d almost think Sudan wasn’t having a genocide.”
–Thomas Lang
Thomas Lang was a writer at CJR Daily.