Click the image to see the full cartoon.

"Populist" is right up there with "change agent" as the most annoying terms of the political season so far. It's only the second full week of January. It'll be a long year.

Unless he starts converting water into wine during the Democratic debate in Nevada tonight, Edwards has little chance of lasting beyond South Carolina, where he is sure to come in a distant third. I don't think Dennis Kucinich's court-ordered appearance tomorrow is going to help him much, either. Kucinich already supports Obama, but if he "piles on" Clinton, he could have a dragging affect on both Obama and Edwards. But I doubt it. Obama seems to have Nevada locked, and S.C. is a toss-up between him and Clinton. Edwards will not pull a McCain, repeating a previous primary win.

Which is too bad. Pace Kucinich, Edwards offers the most progressive vision on health care, fighting poverty, and ending the war. The other candidates have so far co-opted his positions, watering them down in the process. And unlike Obama, he's not proposing nuclear power as an alternative energy nor setting himself up as a Nixon to enter the China of Social Security reform. And as he makes clear every time he shares the stage with her, he's no Clinton.

Leave it to Barbara Ehrenreich to get to the root of what has bothered (at least) me about Senator Clinton's remarks regarding LBJ and MLK:

But Clinton's LBJ remark reveals something more worrisome than racial tone-deafness - a theory of social change that's as elitist as it is inaccurate. Black civil rights weren't won by suited men (or women) sitting at desks. They were won by a mass movement of millions who marched, sat in at lunch counters, endured jailings, and took bullets and beatings for the right to vote and move freely about. Some were students and pastors; many were dirt-poor farmers and urban workers. No one has ever attempted to list all their names.

After learning that Mitt Romney has managed to survive another primary round, I was heartened to see this on YouTube:

Democrats of Michigan, on January 15th you have a unique and wonderful opportunity to screw over the Republican Party.

For more on why voting for Romney in your primary--however counterintuitive it may be to vote for that flip-flopping, say-anything-to-get-elected, neocon-of-convenience hack--isn't such a crazy idea, check out:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/2713/87225

Lest there be any confusion, showing Romney's old stances as a less-than-diehard conservative in Massachusetts is intended to emphasize his ubercynical ability to shape-shift into desirable forms, not to suggest he's a somehow tolerable closet moderate who is simply pretending to be a detestable right wing nut. I don't mean to suggest he should be given the benefit of any doubt in that direction--that's by no means the reason Michigan Dems should cast their vote for him January 15th.

In the rough and real world of politics, Progressives can't afford for voting to be an emotional act of personal expression. It has to be pragmatic, strategic, and effective. So, just this weird once...go Romney. Though it burns my fingers when I type it.