When John Edwards Whispered

Apparently there really is two Americas in John Edwards eyes: His and Hillary Clinton's. After the presidential forum last night Edwards approached Clinton with the idea that it was time to start eliminating other candidates from future debates:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-WsvQhVmhc

The perception of Mr. Edwards that it is legitimate for he and Clinton to decide who should or should not participate in the debates, thus limting free and open dialogue (as well as a true choice of elected official), is not only undemocratic, but thoroughly absurd in light of the "populist" image he has tried to cultivate.

Now he has denied any such proposition. "Apparently" he only wanted to seperate them into two groups picked randomly, though this part of the conversation never made it into his unwitting conversation with Clinton.

But, isn't Edwards the candidate who says "America needs to reclaim its Moral Authority"? Isn't he the candidate that has again and again stressed that importance of admitting when one has made a mistake? The candidate that stresses "leadership" over legisilation?

And it wasn't only Kucinich who expressed anger at this situation. Jaqueline Salit, president of CUIP - Committee for a Unified Independent Party, Inc., wrote a letter to Democratic Chairman, Howard Dean, saying "The statements made on Thursday by Senator Hillary Rodam Clinton and former Senator John Edwards calling for the narrowing of the field of allowable candidates requires an immediate response from you. You must stand up clearly for democratic dialogue..." And that "t would be the height of hypocrisy and partisanship to exclude insurgent candidates who have been critical of the frontrunners. Americans need to hear from more voices, including those that challenge establishment politics."

Kucinich appearced on MSNBC and other news shows welcoming a smaller format for everyone "to see who the serious candidate" is and has apparently presented formal challenges to each of the campaigns. He said he would gladly debate the issues against Edwards and Clinton. When an interviewer on MSNBC asked if he would like to come on the air with Mr. Edwards and debate about the debates themselves, Kucinich was quick to focus on something more important: Healthcare. He said, he would rather debate him on healthcare because there is a critical difference between his single-payer, not-for-profit plan and Edward's which leaves the private companies in the game to waste hundreds of billions of dollars and neglect millions of Americans. Some of the problems with Edwards plan and the merits of Kucinich's can be seen here:

However, I wonder how willing these candidates are to debate Kucinich. The presence of dissenting voices only weakens their positions. The top tier all say they are against the war, support universal healthcare, and oppose outsourcing jobs, for instance, however, a candidate like Kucinich who has consistently opposed the war from the beginning and offered the only solution to effectively end it, as well as the only one offering the U.S. a true universal, single-payer healthcare system and repealing disasters like NAFTA and the WTO threatens these candidates credibility. Consider the increase in support he claimed after the PBS forum last month:

http://www.covenantwithblackamerica.com/

Kucinich's support jumped 5 times over after the forum, which allowed equal time to each of the candidates answering the same question. Edwards did well here too, increasing 2 times in post forum support, but one has to wonder where these candidates would stand if all debates and media coverage were equal. I mean after this one forum, those who were polled had more support for Kucinich than Clinton! And both Clinton and Obama lost support. That's even after the millions in campaigning, advertising and free media coverage in the MSM that neglects so many other candidates and, sadly, attempts to decide who is/is not a viable canididate.

The challenge is now put to Mr. Edwards and Senator Clinton. And collusion and deception are only marks of fear. The American people need to know where you stand. They need leaders who will honor fairness and act accordingly. Do you have enough confidence in your posistions to welcome the critics? Do you really want the public to decide freely? Do you suppport a democratic election? We need to know.