Bloggers and the Democratic presidential race

Most of you could probably have guessed that I'm not crazy about any of the people who are likely to become the next Democratic candidate for U.S. President. John Edwards has good plans for revamping flagging social programs, but he's too socially conservative. Barack Obama is wonderfully charismatic and would probably be a force to reckon with in the White House, but for me personally he's too fiscally conservative and too interested in making a pitch to win over so-called "faith voters." And Hillary Clinton? Well, you know what I think about her.

But I'm going to have to hold my nose and vote for someone next year, so I've been keeping my eyes open. And a couple of things suggested to me that Edwards might just be positioning himself as a genuine left-wing candidate. Certainly his health care plan, while far from optimal, is a terribly gutsy move for anyone in my country of birth. And just as exciting was his appointment of one of my favourite U.S. bloggers, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, as his official campaign blogger. I was impressed with the fact that Edwards' people knew the U.S. political blogosphere both to hire a campaign blogger in the first place, and to realize what a gem Marcotte is, and I was also impressed with his daring in hiring someone like Marcotte--a true lefty--to represent him to the blogosphere. I'm not a Democrat, not really, but if Edwards was going to be that cool, then maybe I could look the other way whenever he talked about identity politics.

Well, my tentative steps in his direction were stopped cold yesterday when, after being hounded for a week by the right-wing blogosphere and the hard-right Catholic League, Salon magazine reported that Marcotte and her co-blogger were fired for having voiced some left-wing ideas in their own personal blogs, months ago, with a sense of humour. This was, of course, after Marcotte had already uprooted her life and moved across the country to take the position. But their firing says more about Edwards than just that he's a crappy boss--it also says that his people weren't quite bright enough to have done their homework before choosing Marcotte. And most importantly, it also lets us know that when the U.S. right says jump, he will. And this is despite the fact that the guy from the Catholic League who's been making such a fuss has been shown to be far kookier than Marcotte could be even if you took everything she writes completely seriously. What will this supposed friend of the left do when the right brings out the big guns and aims them straight at his health care plan? Because if he doesn't think they will, he's not just naive, he's crazy.

After impassioned pleas to keep Marcotte and her co-blogger broke out across the blogosphere, though, this morning, three new posts appeared on the Edwards campaign blog. One was from Marcotte, and was, in essence, a fauxpology (which is, I suppose, the best you can do when you have to apologize but you have nothing to apologize for). The second was from Marcotte's co-blogger, and had similar content. And the third was from John Edwards himself, and went like this:

The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwan's posts personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word. We're beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can't let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.

So he's hardly flipping the far right the big ol' bird, but it looks like they've been rehired--for now, at least. The whole ordeal still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, though. After all, the jury is still out on whether, when Time magazine dubbed Edwards "the new Howard Dean," they meant "Presidential candidate who can ignite the fire of the youth through a creative use of community-building technology," or "Presidential candidate who makes a colossal misstep early on and goes down in flames." I also can't help but be reminded of how grim the political spectrum down there looks. When you have no genuine left-wing party, the so-called middle-of-the-road folks get pulled so far right that the real lefties don't fit in anywhere. Except Canada, I suppose. Because for all our system's flaws, we've got something the Americans don't have--a political spectrum that encompasses a full range of viewpoints.

It's something the centre-left might want to keep in mind the next time people start droning on about the supposed attractiveness of a Liberal-NDP merger.

[Update: Majikthise comes to the same conclusions, but is significantly more optimistic than I am about what this means for the future of "standing up to the right." Ah well, I suppose that's why she's living there and I'm not!]