John Edwards
unveiled a new Web site
today that asks voters not to vote for any candidate who takes money from lobbyists or Political Action Committees.
Sorry, let me rephrase that. Edwards unveiled a Web site today that asks voters not to vote for Hillary Clinton.
Championing his own commitment to a lobby-free lifestyle, Edwards wants to rally a million Americans around an anti-lobby pledge. The Web site is the culmination of a
campaign-long
initiative by Edwards to move fund-raising away from lobbying and PACs. A noble goal, certainly, but this is chiefly a political gesture, and the politics of the move aren’t that sound.
At some point, Edwards is going to have to realize that voters he shakes loose from Hillary’s grasp aren’t all flocking to him. And with Obama’s
recent PAC flap
in the news, he’s passing up a golden opportunity to go after Hillary
and
Obama. Sure, he doesn’t want to seem overly aggressive. But as Edwards himself likes to remind us, the Democratic primary isn’t a two-person race—certainly not between him and Senator Clinton, anyway.