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Edwards needs to realize that you can only go so far in a presidential election playing the class warfare card and bashing Wal-Mart. Most people are tired of the Two Americas speech from a person that has $50 million in his bank account.

Maybe we are tired of it because we are a nation of "what's new" and "don't tell us bad news we want to ignore". In several elections, people have voted against their own economic interests in favor of so-called "family values". Hard to value anything in the family if you can't put a decent roof over their heads and pay the medical bills at the same time.

Obama fever it is. He has the charisma many are hungry for. He seems to transcend race and class, being the son of a white mother and African immigrant father. He isn't part of some real or perceived political "dynasty". And he has been forthright in his discussion of the apparently all-important faith question in politics, as a Christian convert from his mother's secularist home.

With all due respect, Jim, the oft-repeated mantra that people voted against their own economic interests is condescending. Lots of working-class people simply don't buy into the welfare-state mantra or see themselves as victims in society. Many believe instead that this is still an opportunity society that offers them a chance to make it. The immigrant population included.

Obama is merely a latte version of John Edwards. Big hat, no cattle.
Obama has no leadership experience, little political experience, no military experience, hasn't run a business, worked as a liberal lawyer, used marijuana and cocaine, and has done nothing since his US Senate election except run for President.
Obama gives good speeches, and that's all. People like him for what he says, which, as we saw with Bill Clinton, is absolutely no clue as to how he would perform as president.
Giving good speeches with no other qualifiers is not sufficient reason to elect someone the leader of the free world.

I just read an article on Obama and a real estate "deal" on a home he bought in Chicago. It appears his squeaky clean personna just might be sullied.

He got the home well below market, and a long time friend, who might be spending some Federal time in the pokie, bought the land next to Obama at fair market on the SAME day, then turned around and sold Obama a slice of it. Question is, did his acquaintance give full price for his part in order that Obama get's a break on his house purchase?

Only in Chicago.

I think people DO vote against SOME of their own interests ALL the time: no candidate perfectly meshes with anyone's every desire, do they? It is a matter of degree; how much does one want one plank in the platform, and how much is one willing to look the other way or rationalize what may occur when such a person gains clout?

Most people in service and middle management jobs dream, as every American is conditioned to, of making it "big", or at least "bigger" than some group of perceived comparative earners...or to reach the echelons of their imagined, hoped-for aspirant group. Happiness with one's lot is not very thrilling; the pursuit of wealth and the projected happiness it might bring is the great motivator of capitalist consumerist culture, right?

That said, once the real levers of power and their brokers have the masses hooked, they'll sell them soap and dreams, the virtues of a clean, all-American life, to keep them on the treadmill of borrow and spend. Hence, we have a government, whether Democratic or Republican led, that acts exactly the same way.