Edwards has "challenged" Obama, according to Axelrod, and now we've got a battle between Obama and Edwards over whether corporate drug & Pharma lobbyists should be invited to the table (Obama), or battled (Edwards), to enact healthcare reform.
Guess which side Paul Krugman comes down on: Anyone who thinks that the next president can achieve real change without bitter confrontation is living in a fantasy world.
There's a strong populist tide running in America right now. For example, a recent Democracy Corps survey of voter discontent found that the most commonly chosen phrase explaining what's wrong with the country was "Big businesses get whatever they want in Washington."
And there's every reason to believe that the Democrats can win big next year if they run with that populist tide. The latest evidence came from focus groups run by both Fox News and CNN during last week's Democratic debate: both declared Mr. Edwards the clear winner.
But the news media recoil from populist appeals. The Des Moines Register, which endorsed Mr. Edwards in 2004, rejected him this time on the grounds that his "harsh anti-corporate rhetoric would make it difficult to work with the business community to forge change."
And while The Register endorsed Hillary Clinton, the prime beneficiary of media distaste for populism has clearly been Mr. Obama, with his message of reconciliation. According to a recent survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, Mr. Obama's coverage has been far more favorable than that of any other candidate.
He will probably win -- but not as big as a candidate who ran on a more populist platform. Let's be blunt: pundits who say that what voters really want is a candidate who makes them feel good, that they want an end to harsh partisanship, are projecting their own desires onto the public.
And nothing Mr. Obama has said suggests that he appreciates the bitterness of the battles he will have to fight if he does become president, and tries to get anything done.
Edwards did challenge Obama:
As president, Edwards said, he would be more successful in fighting the powerful corporations and interests that he says control America's health care system and other important areas.
Obama, he said, would take a more conciliatory approach. "He talks about bringing drug companies, insurance companies, oil companies ... to the table and working with them and negotiating and compromising," Edwards said. "I just think that'll never work. If that would work, it would have worked years ago. If that worked, we'd have universal health care. We don't...
You know, we've got a lot of good and talented candidates, we've got a lot of smart candidates, and we've got a lot of people with good ideas," he said. "But we need somebody who's ready for this battle."
There is a solid frontal attack now that is working against Obama on both the political and the policy side. That is, he's not battle-tested for the general election against Republicans, and that he's not ready to battle for progressive reforms as President. The political side of the frame had been gaining a foothold over the past two weeks, and now we see the policy side gain a foothold, surprisingly, by Obama defending having the lobbyist groups at his table. The way it's framed, Edwards wins this battle easily.
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