Et tu, Populus Quero?

I'll leave chastising John Edwards for having an adulterous affair with Rielle Hunter to others. Personally, I don't care that much. I think he did a very dumb thing while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination and am disappointed for that reason. For everything else, it's none of my business.

But I do want to draw attention to the role of the National Enquirer in this, ahem, affair.

During the 1996 campaign, the National Enquirer broke the story that presidential candidate Bob Dole had a long-ago affair that began in 1968.

In 1999, Steve Coz, the National Enquirer's editor, said

any future extramarital exposé "depends a lot on the stance of that politician. If that politician is backed by Jerry Falwell and takes the family-values route, that gets pretty legitimate. But I don't see us pot-shotting extramarital affairs just because it's juicy copy."

Guess that policy must have died when Falwell did.

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Public May Be Ahead Of Candidates On Medical Marijuana

Testifying before Congress last summer, the chief scientist in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Dr. David Murray, reportedly said that the medical use of marijuana had sparked violence and robberies in California.

I suppose I've seen too many silly old movies like Reefer Madness. I envisioned, in grainy black and white, wild-eyed, pot-crazed cancer patients, knocking over convenience stores to get at the Milk Duds stash.

More seriously, this season's leading Republican presidential candidates seem to be toeing the White House line on this issue. The Democrats, characteristically, have been more open-minded. But they all seem to be trailing the American public.

As long ago as 2002, a Time/CNN survey found that 80 percent of Americans support the use of marijuana as medicine. And in the same survey, 72 percent said nonmedicinal users should be fined, not thrown in the hoosegow. In other words, they favored decriminalization.

Here's a video sampling of what some of the candidates, current and former, have said about medical marijuana.

Onward.


From Barack Obama, who admits having inhaled his share as a young man:



From Mitt Romney, evasion and swill:



Here's Hillary Clinton. At least she answered the question:



Now John McCain. He makes one thing perfectly clear -- he's opposed to incarcerating the dead:



This from recent dropout John Edwards. Even with some problems, I'm sad he's not still in the running:



Last, but not least, heeeere's Ron Paul. True to 19th-century American values, he's for states' rights on the issue:



That's all we have time for today, folks. Until next time, 2012, don't get diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Crossposted at Manifesto Joe.

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Will 2008 be the Year of the Populist?

Perhaps.

How else to explain the insurgent popularity of Mike Huckabee?

There is always a populist somewhere in the Democratic field, at least early on. John Edwards has tapped into a vein of traditional Democratic working-class and man-of-the-people appeals; and as the message seems to be catching on this election cycle, other Democratic candidates are scurrying to don the populist cloth. Even Hillary. "The wealthy and the well-connected have had a president for seven years," she told a crowd in Ottumwa last night. "Meanwhile, most Americans have seen their incomes stall."

But I honestly don't think I can place a single Republican populist in the Republican field, ever. I have certainly never seen one with the support Huckabee is currently enjoying.

The Huckabee campaign presents a real opportunity for head-scratching on the part of the bought-and-paid-for corporatists of the Republican Party, which has traditionally been business friendly at the expense of all other interests.

None of the other Republicans candidates have taken up the charge. In fact, Frederick of Hollywood stuck to the script (there's a writer's strike on, you know) and continued to insist that "[N]ot enough has been done to tell what some call the greatest story never told, and that is that we are enjoying a period of growth right now."

It doesn't hurt the populist message any that oil hit a hundred bucks a barrel the day before Iowans caucus. John Edwards immediately seized on the price of oil and incorporated it into his campaign message the day before the first votes are cast. "Today's report that the price of oil has reached $100 a barrel is just another example of how corporate greed is squeezing the middle class," said Mr. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, in a statement. At a packed coffeehouse in downtown Iowa City yesterday, he asked the crowd, "Are you going to let corporate greed steal your children's future?"

[Keep reading]

That message can't help but hit home in a state where towns are far-flung, and farms dot the landscape. And every one of those farms has at least a couple of 250-gallon tanks (one for gas, one for diesel) that have to be filled up regularly, and there is no buy-in-bulk discount. (Those Massey-Fergusson and John Deere tractors and combines that plant and harvest a lot of the food you buy at Albertson's and Safeway get fueled up at home, not in town at the gas station.)

Huckabee frequently cites escalating fuel prices as a major concern for voters, and even goes so far as to contrast CEO pay with stagnating wages. On New Years Day he told an audience that "A president needs to understand that what's good for the American economy needs to be good for all Americans."

He also contrasts his own humble roots with the privileged life of his chief rival here in Iowa, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. "If politics is going to end up being nothing more than about who has the most money, then we've not had a presidency, we've had a plutocracy, and we might as well put it on eBay and sell it to the highest bidder," he said yesterday in Mason City.

Huckabee might be getting grief from that embarrassing gasbag Limbaugh and his slavering minions of the so-called "right" - but his message is resonating with people who are more concerned about paying for their next tank of $3 per gallon gasoline than whether they ditched their illegal viagra before they attempted to clear customs after their latest Dominican fleshpot cruise.

One of the pillars of Huckabee's economic plan is a "fair tax" - a national sales tax that would replace the income tax (this is anathema to business interests, which guard their favorite loopholes in the tax code as jealously as a Texas high-school cheerleaders mother). Conservatives and liberals alike denounce the notion as dangerous, because it would have to be much higher than what Mr. Huckabee has proposed in order to raise enough revenue to keep the country running. Critics also charge that the "fair tax" Huckabee proposes would hit the very working-class people he aims to help the hardest.

But that doesn't stop it from resonating. It hit home with 22-year-old Jason Downs, a University of Iowa student who recently went to a Huckabee rally. "Right now the middle class is paying more taxes, the upper class has abilities to get accountants and move funds around and all that. Where if you have a consumption tax, it's going to be a fair amount," said Mr. Downs.

John Edwards, who never left Iowa after the 2004 election, has been priming the populist pump in Iowa ever since. And with energy prices so high, and healthcare so tenuous (farmers are self employed and have to buy their own health coverage, unless a spouse works "in town" and likely only took the job in the first place in order to get insurance. And still the premiums and copays keep going up.)

Whatever happens tonight in Iowa, and next week in New Hampshire, the economic message of populism is going to influence the rest of the campaign.

And while I am not a populist (insert joke about city dwellers and public transportation here) I welcome the message. For too long corporate interests have run roughshod over the interests of ordinary people, to the point that it now represents a serious threat to our liberty. So I welcome anything that might reverse that trend.

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Obama and Edwards under attack from Fox News

Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards and Barack Obama have refused to appear on Faux News. Watch the Fox Attacks! video for solid reasons why they haven't and shouldn't appear on the wingnut media network.



You can click over to sign an Open Letter to Edwards and Obama for their decision to reject Faux News to say, "We appreciate your strength and integrity in saying no to the Murdoch machine, and we support your refusal to appear on FOX."

[That's all. No more after the break.]

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Send Good Thoughts Toward North Carolina

John Edwards canceled a trip to Iowa on Wednesday to accompany his wife to a follow-up appointment with the physician who treated her for breast cancer after she was diagnosed the same week that Senators Edwards and Kerry lost the 2004 presidential bid to unseat Bush and Cheney.

The Edwards' will hold a press conference on Thursday to make an announcement about her health and the future of the Edwards campaign.

From the March 22 New York Times;

After the campaign announced its intention to hold a press conference on Thursday in North Carolina, concern quickly among former and current aides to the Edwards family. One close family friend reached Wednesday evening declined to comment on the announcement, but said it would affect at least temporarily the future of the campaign.

Other supporters and friends contacted said they were unaware of the scope of the announcement. A leading contributor to the campaign, speaking on condition of anonymity, said organizers had not been notified to cancel a long string of events scheduled before the end of March, the deadline for the first-quarter financial reports.

Mrs. Edwards, 57, has been one of her husband’s closest confidantes in both of his presidential campaigns. A former bankruptcy lawyer, who often spends hours a day on the Internet, she is among the campaign’s chief advisers.

Through her book, “Saving Graces,” she wrote about the loss she felt after their son, Wade, was killed in a car accident in 1996. At age 48 and 50 she had two more children, saying it was the only way to bring joy back into their home for her, her husband and their daughter, Cate.

During the 2004 presidential race, Mrs. Edwards became a fixture on the campaign trail, in the primary race and the general election. She often would be dispatched to blue-collar settings, hardly stereotypical audiences for a political spouse. Her military upbringing, she once said, made her perfectly suited for a life on the road — she would travel anywhere and talk to anyone.

I have always found Elizabeth Edwards a charming and engaging person, and not just because of that shared "Brat" thing. I am keeping her in my thoughts as I retire for the night, and at this moment, I regret checking the morning papers before turning in.

Good luck, Elizabeth. I've got your back.

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