NEWS AND COMMENT

NEWS ITEM

Edwards raises "electability" issue

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards Sunday warned Iowa voters about what he perceives as the perils of nominating a candidate who down-ticket Democrats in some parts of the nation may decline to appear with in their own campaign events

COMMENT

This thrust by Edwards is clearly directed primarily against Senato Hillary Clinton.

Hillary will probably get the nomination and would, I think, be an excellent president. Unfortunately, of the three top candidates, she is the only one with a significant chance of losing the general election. There is just no way to predict the extent and effect of the negativity factor.

So Obama or Edwards should be the nominee. I favor Obama as an inspiring agent of change with potential for greatness. I doubt that the risk of racist voting is in any way comparable to the risk of negativity votes against Clinton.