The Squeaky Third Wheel

The Common Man hopes that you had a wonderful 4th of July holiday. He did, going to see Transformers (review forthcoming), taking The Boy down to the creek and dipping his feet in, eating and drinking with The Deacon, and curling up with The Boy on The Deacon's front lawn to watch fireworks/pretend to be awake. It was a good day.

Something else that The Common Man has been using to put an extra spring in his step for the last couple of days has been this video of Elizabeth Edwards calmly and politely dismantling Ann Coulter. Careful readers will remember Ms. Coulter as the Queen of the Harpies that quasi-called John Edwards a "faggot" back in March. Of course, if you don't read this blog regularly, you've probably heard of her as well. She kind of enjoys attention. The Common Man wants to know what's hiding behind Coulter's sunglasses in this clip, as she's forced to listen to Edwards kindly and politely asking her to not be such a horrible person (not asking her to stop writing or speaking, just asking her to stop being such a horrible person while she's doing it).

Anyway, all of this is a long introduction to say that The Common Man thinks John Edwards is currently in the catbird seat in the Democratic nomination fight. Sure, he is fighting with the non-running film-maker Al Gore (who just got embroiled in his own controversy; The Common Man didn't even know that a Prius could go 100 MPH) for third place in the most recent Gallup poll (at approximately 10% of Democratic voters, as of mid-June), roughly 10% behind Obama and 20% behind Clinton, but Edwards has significant advantages over the two front-runners.

He already has solid name-recognition, but his continued feud with Coulter (one of Democrats' least favorite people ever) will only increase his visibility in the news and make him easily the hero in a very one-sided battle for public sympathy. In addition, from the #3 spot, he can run quietly against the top two candidates while they fight between themselves. As the Obama/Clinton race becomes more heated and (presumably) less civil, Edwards can clean up whatever voters are turned off by their squabbles. And as Bill Clinton demonstrated in 1992, Edwards does not have to win in Iowa and New Hampshire, he simply has to present himself as a viable candidate and finish "in the money".

With the shorter nomination season this time around, it will be more difficult for Edwards to build on any momentum he gets from Iowa and New Hampshire, but if smart campaigning between now and February can cut into the Clinton/Obama lead (particularly by exploiting the additional media coverage he seems to be generating to create more opportunities for free advertising), he certainly can slide into the nomination after Super Tuesday. With Clinton's lack of personality and Obama's lack of specific proposals, The Common Man believes that it's far too early to write off the Democratic nomination as a two-horse race.