Patriot Act. Iraq War. Keystone XL. Wall Street.

[MADem]

83. History didn't notice that he voted--repeatedly-- to fund the very conflict that he opposed....

and it really should notice that, because those are the more important votes, at the end of the day. Nothing happens without money, and he voted to give Bush the money to pay for his lousy war. Not just once, either--over and over and over again.

I think it's easy to be selective in what one likes about a candidate, but I find the avuncular old guy hippie-ish, Granola and Peacenik persona hiding behind a fighter jet and nuclear weapon accommodation a bit off - putting. It would bother me less if the collar matched the cuffs, but he plays at the way left game and tacks sharply to the right when it suits him--on the issues I've mentioned, on Israel, and the whole gun business, as well. Plus, he just doesn't have the network or the endorsements or the cash, or the outreach to minority voters--his venues have been almost entirely white, and even in Arlington VA, where you'd think he could draw a multi-cultural audience, the venue population was pretty pale. He just doesn't appeal across the broad cultural swathe. Maybe he can change that; I just don't see it happening. I don't feel him speaking to people who don't fit the VT profile. He has no superdelegate endorsements--none. He has a great litany of complaints about what's wrong, and I agree with him on many of them, but he has yet to articulate any solutions that I could see Congress rising up to back him on.

I simply don't see a path for him.

Should a path open up, and he wins the nomination, I'll vote for him (any Democrat, even a nominal one, is better than any Republican) --but he's not my first choice; he's not even my 2nd anymore (I lean to O'Malley in the second slot). He's well ahead of Webb in my personal horse-race, but that wasn't hard! I don't appreciate Webb's historical dismissal of women, or his "heritage" enthusiasm for the Confederacy...