THIS POPULIST THING ONLY GOES SO FAR... WHEN YOU'RE AN AMBITIOUS MULTIMILLIONAIRE

John Edwards could have made a difference-- a really big one. Again, I'm not  talking about today's cockamamie North Carolina presidential primary, where no one really cares what he or Elizabeth Edwards say. No disrespect  for the Senator or his wife, but everyone has made up their minds about the presidential primary-- many several times in fact. But after Edwards left the Senate, where he racked up a fairly mediocre record as a careful, careerist-oriented moderate, he seemed to have undergone a genuine transformation into a real populist with a distinctly progressive bent that had been missing from his Senate record. He could have made a real difference today in the battle for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination to take on the execrable reactionary Elizabeth Dole.

Instead, the Edwards decided to do an election-eve interview in People and declare they wouldn't be endorsing in the presidential race. They recited their pros and cons about Hillary and Obama. "I like Hillary's health care plan," said Elizabeth, a devoted proponent of universal health care for the middle class. And what she doesn't like about the Hilldog: "The lobbyist money."  OK and in the Senate race one candidate, Jim Neal has an even better health care plan than Hillary's and is more devoted to election reform than Obama, while the other, ultimate Insider Kay Hagan, would be happy for Big Pharma and HMO  lobbyists continue writing the country's health care legislation-- as long as enough of their bribes contributions continue to flow her way.

John Edwards says what he doesn't like about Hillary is that she's a practitioner of "the old politics." That's a very polite way of saying what she and her backers are. He and Elizabeth could have made the difference in the Senate race. Instead they're standing by and allowing a pathetic Establishment hack get the Democratic nomination. That tells me an awful lot about John Edwards, gut level idea I've always had about him but that I mostly suspended when I wanted to believe in him. That won't happen again.