Raging Red

Well, it’s finally here — the first day of primary voting (or caucusing, whatever). I wasn’t 100% sure at first, but now I am (not that casting a vote in West Virginia’s May primary will have any effect). I want John Edwards to be our next president. I’ll save my cynicism about the likelihood of this happening for another day.

The reason? Via Amanda (and originally blogged here):

I’ve been mostly supporting John Edwards since the beginning of primary season, for reasons to which I’ve alluded before, which boil down to “his priorities are similar to mine.” He’s the only candidate directly confronting the fundamentally broken nature of political news coverage in the US; he’s the only candidate directly engaging the problem of economic inequality at any length; he’s the only candidate I’ve seen directly address the ongoing catastrophe in New Orleans; and his repudiation of his early support for the war on Iraq leads me to believe he’s interested in a less interventional foreign policy than any of the other candidates (except Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich). He made many of these points while running for VP, of course, so I was inclined to like him when the primaries began. He’s not afraid to be a liberal, and he’s not willing to parrot Republicans’ rhetoric to bash Democrats, both of which are habits that drive me nuts about the other leading Dems. He’s charismatic and smart and a good campaigner–it’s really not easy for a bleeding-heart liberal to win a Senate seat in North Carolina, as I know from watching the state close-up for nearly twenty years.

But yesterday I had pointed out another reason why I support him: The entrenched power elites are really scared of him.

That about sums it up.