If I Lived In Iowa

Who would I caucus for tonight? For months I've been an Obama supporter. But now I'm wavering. Because Obama has been spouting the right-wing lines left and right (no pun intended). The Social Security "crisis", let's compromise with Republicans, and this week a dig at John Edwards for being a trial lawyer. Hello, Mr. Harvard Law, almost $8,000,000 of your fundraising has come from lawyers, and that's not all $20 donations from civil rights attorneys.

And what Democrat in their right mind goes after trial lawyers? We are after all the last bulwark against corporate power. Do you think that once you make it impossible for ordinary citizens to bring lawsuits, that the corporations will give up their gold-plated attorneys? Hello? There's a reason Shakespeare wrote, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Not to make the world better for our corporate oligarchs, but to clear the path for tyranny.

And John Edwards is running a very progressive campaign. I'm a true-blue liberal, and I want to vote for a progressive Democrat (like many in the blogosphere). I completely agree with Edwards' contention that corporate power must be opposed head-on. You can't win a fight unless you are willing to fight. I love Atrios' description of the three major Democratic candidates:

Obama: The system sucks, but I'm so awesome that it'll melt away before me.

Edwards: The system sucks, and we're gonna have to fight like hell to destroy it.

Clinton: The system sucks, and I know how to work within it more than anyone.

Here's another reason I'd probably caucus for Edwards tonight: reportedly, Republicans will be crossing party lines (you can do that in the Iowa caucuses, another reason that lily-white state shouldn't be choosing the Democratic nominee) and they're all expected to go for Obama as part of a beat-ubermonsterfeminazi-Hillary, beat-progressive-Edwards strategy.

But the bottom line is, every Democratic candidate is better than every Republican candidate, hands down. I'll work for and donate to the Democratic candidate, whether it's Edwards, Obama, or Clinton, or Dodd, Richardson or Biden. We must take back our country this year. It's now or never.