barack obama vs. john edwards

So I watched the Democratic candidates debate in Las Vegas a couple nights ago. As you, the regular readers of this blog are aware, I have been an fan of Barack Obama for some time now. Once again I really liked Obama's take on things in this debate. I love the fact that he refused to answer so called "yes or no questions" because he wouldn't buy into the premises behind the questions. I mean we've had a president for 8 years who thinks you can look at the world in a simplistice "yes or no, us or them, good or bad" dichotomy, and the results speak for themselves.

However, during the debate, John Edwards also caught my attention. He said he wants to rid the world of nuclear weapons, including here in the U.S. How frickin' kewl is that? I loved his explanation of how we got NAFTA, which hurt lots of poor people, and didn't get universal health care, all at the same time, because big corporate interests rule Washington D. C.

At this point, I think I'd be pretty happy to vote for either Mr. Obama or Mr. Edwards in the general election. However, I still rather prefer Mr. Obama. This has to do with their backgrounds. Obama lived in Jakarta for four years as a preteen, and attended local schools. Obama's entire career has been devoted to working to help "the least of these". Edwards, on the other hand, is pretty much from the old south, and although in one sense I rather like the fact that as a malpractice lawyer he won some $60 million in settlements for his clients, on the other hand I rather *don't* like the fact that he probably pockets at least $15 million of that. Moreover, I rather don't think that such enormous awards are leading towards a useful or helpful solution to the stupidity of the whole medical system in this country.

That's my 27 cents worth.