about our great Democratic candidates even the ones who are not my top choice. All I think is "kick" when I read a trollish outburst from a loser naysayer who is freeperish enough to believe that a non-substantive slur against a candidate other than their first choice somehow benefits their chosen candidate. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Thanks again.

Although Dennis Kucinich gets little respect from those whose narrow view of the campaign is limited to picking a nominee, those of us who also see the campaign as a battle of ideas know that the campaign is not necessarily a winner-take-all fight because Hillary, Edwards, Obama, or whoever is our eventual nominee may see a brilliant idea from a second tier candidate and adopt it.

In this marketplace of campaign ideas, Dennis Kucinich has a commanding lead over the pack.

Before you reject this idea of Dennis Kucinich leading the Democratic pack, please check out his new TV ad, here:

http://kucinich.us/node/4580/play

After you watch his ad, ask yourself this question: do Hillary and Obama really need more millions or should I send that Dennis Kucinich a few bucks to run his 'No more blood for oil' spot on TV?

You'll notice that independent voters line up with Democrats rather than Republicans on every issue:

















Some really good analysis of those numbers here: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/496/democratic...

Here's some analysis:

This is key and quite ingenious I think. It allows for some market competition to try to lower prices as insurance companies compete against each other and the federal government. If the government program proves to be the best option (which if we have a Democratic government, it surely will be) then it will be a no-brainer to choose the federal plan and over time we should have a gradual transition to a single-payer system. The framing on this is excellent. We can talk about competition and it will be hard for the republicans to beat this back. If the private market wins, so be it. If it doesn't, then don't Americans deserve the best plan available, even if it happens to be the federal plan?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/2/5/15200/4...

Let me talk just briefly about my plan for universal health care, and then I'm sure we'll get into more detail as we go through this conversation. Basically what we do is cover all Americans. In my plan there's shared responsibilities. The employers are required to either cover their employees or to pay into a fund that will help pay for coverage for their employees. The government plays an important role. The government will set up health care markets all across America, and in each of those markets if you're the consumer, you can go in and choose what your health care plan would be. Some of the choices are private insurers, and then one choice is a government plan, basically a Medicare Plus plan. And the idea is to determine whether Americans actually want a private insurer or whether they'd rather have government run Medicare Plus kind of single-payer plan. And we'll find out over time which way people go.

...

It is true that single-payer health care systems in the world dramatically reduce costs and significantly reduce administrative costs, particularly compared to private insurers. It's also true that a lot of people who are listening to this forum like the health insurance they have now and would like to keep it.

And my judgment is, number one, to get it done so that we don't spend another decade arguing about whether we keep the system we have now or actually have universal health care. I think this system, my proposal, a truly universal plan, a bold plan, but doesn't go directly to single-payer, can be accomplished. I think it can be accomplished politically. I think we can get support from across the political spectrum and will accomplish a lot of what we want to do.

Second, it does give people choice. And I think Americans have become accustomed to having choice, and I think they want to be able to choose what their health care plan is. Now, it may be that that gravitates towards a single-payer plan because they will have the Medicare plus the choices. And if that's the case, then the whole system can go in that direction. But you'll decide that. Consumers will decide that. So I think actually this plan makes sense in terms of moving us forward, getting a universal health care plan in place, giving people the choice of the equivalent of a single-payer plan with Medicare Plus, and then we'll see where it goes from there.

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/even...

Interesting Gallup Poll results:



To put this in context, as compared to gay sex, more Americans have moral qualms about cloning animals (36% find it morally acceptable as compared to 47% who find gay sex morally acceptable and 59% find cloning animals morally unacceptable as compared to 49% who feel the same way about gay sex).

Likewise, as compared to abortions, more Americans have moral qualms about suicide (16% find it morally acceptable as compared to 40% who find abortion morally acceptable and 78% find suicide morally unacceptable as compared to 51% who feel the same way about abortion). Among the least morally acceptable practices in America: married people having extra-marital affairs, which only 6% find morally acceptable and 91% find morally unacceptable.

Most interestingly, Americans by a vast majority have no moral qualms about embryonic stem cell research:



Link to the whole study: http://www.galluppoll.com/content/default....

Some perspectives:

DKos post-debate wrap up: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/26/20...

The Democratic Debate: Edwards Won

by politicaljunkie2008
Thu Apr 26, 2007 at 06:15:07 PM PDT

I just saw the democratic debate on MSNBC. I have to say that I think Edwards won. I think he won because he was so specific about the policies he would pursue. Many of the other candidates were specific, in certain areas, but less so in others. Unfortunately, (other than Kucinich and Gravel), many of the candidates answered many of the questions with general and broad answers. The feeling I got from those answers was that they were admitting there are certain truths, but that they hadn't thought about the issues enough to come up with a plan. Edwards was the only one who was specific about almost everything.

I think this is important for several reasons. First, why was it we won the 2006 election? It was because democrats like Sherrod Brown, Jim Webb and Bob Casey, campaigned on platforms of economic populism, while offering very specific policies. Many of those policies, such as a raise in the minimum wage, wont be as potent in 2008 because they will have already been enacted.
...
I didn't come in to the debate in favor or in opposition to Edwards, and I don't leave in favor or opposition. But Edwards did win the debate. And if a democrat other than Edwards wins the nomination, he or she would be very smart to take the strategy of Edwards in offering concrete, and specific policies.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/26/21...

Who won the debate? W/POLL

1. Clinton: Poised and commanding. I am absolutely not in the Hillary camp, but I was impressed by her image. I was absolutely not impressed by her misrepresenting her health care initiative in the 90s and her unwillingness to answer certain questions. The 9/ll references started to sound a little Guliani, too.

2. Obama. Hmm. Not sure. He didn't wow me, but he didn't necessarily disappoint, either. He would do well in an actual debate, as evidenced by his exchange with Kucinich at the end.

3. Edwards: Overall, I think he did the best of everyone tonight. Not stellar, but on average, he gets my vote for the victor. A disclaimer: I am an Edwards guy, but more than willing to concede a bad night. He had a pretty good one, though.

4. Kucinich: Suffered from typical treatment by Williams of a "fringe" candidate. His response regarding Cheney and impeachment was brilliant. To be honest, I don't take him all that seriously, but I appreciate his moving the conversation to the sane/left side of the spectrum.

5. Gravel: Sorry, but how can you not like this guy's energy? Folks here have had a field day trashing him, but I ask: did he say anything that was actually wrong? A little Stockdale, but then again, we're in a sorry state if the most important necessary skill is the ability to talk on television.

6. Richardson: Some good answers, especially on his first four days in office, but I thought he was generally uninspiring. His explanation for his support for Gonzalez might have been honest, but I didn't like it at all. Richardson supporters, swing away.

7. Biden: "Yes." This was likely the quote of the night. Otherwise, I wasn't feeling it.

8. Dodd: Not bad, but like Richardson, generally uninspiring. An old-school Democrat, which I like, but without the gravitas necessary to put a new shine on the rhetoric.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/2...


The Blue State Opinion: John Edwards wins first debate

After a very intense discussion between members of our team, The Blue State will declare John Edwards as the winner of the first Democratic presidential debate. He was clearly more prepared than anyone else, appeared the most sincere and positive as well. Here are our rankings, from best to worst:

1. John Edwards - Most straight-forward in his answers. Clearly came off the best. He had a lot riding on this debate, and came up big.
2. Barack Obama - Being attacked by Kucinich and Gravel made him look more mainstream and more electable. Strongest on foreign policy -- really shined on that issue.
3. Hillary Clinton - Very sharp answers, especially around the end. Saying that she was from New York twice, while speaking in a non-New York accent, may have hurt her sincerity. But overall she was surprisingly analytical.
4. Joe Biden - His infamous one-word answer contradicted criticism for his typically long-winded rhetoric. Strongest tonight on the issue of non-Iraq foreign policy.
5. Bill Richardson - Stumbled a bit on the Gonzales question, but rebounded when he talked about North Korea and Iran -- since foreign policy is clearly his strength.
6. Chris Dodd - Exactly what we expected out of him.
7. Dennis Kucinich - Picking a fight with Obama just to pick a fight didn't help him at all. Obama should have ignored him. He actually should have spent more time talking about Cheney impeachment.
8. Mike Gravel - The "potted plant" comment was the most thoughtful insight he said all night.

http://www.thebluestate.com/2007/04/john_e...

The Experts Agree- Edwards Won!
Posted by James Martin under Virginia Politics

Well… Or he tied HRC:

Everyone seemed to think that both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards acquitted themselves admirably, although there were a few mentions of Edwards’ long pause before responding to the “moral leader” question, and a few counter-volleys about Hillary Clinton’s alleged shrillness.

For the Record, i have to say Edwards answering the moral leader question as Jesus and his wife saved that response and actually made the debate for him- Well that and Edwards being the only one who was creditable on Healthcare.

I also think Hillary praising Wal-Mart and refusing to disavow her 2003 vote for war, especially since that’s been John Edwards thing and Dem Voters agree with him on both points, hurt her alot more than people imagine with the viewing audience.

http://vaprogressive.com/?p=1974

Joe Klien for Time has a similar view:

John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama didn't do much to distinguish or hurt themselves. Obama seems to wander into his answers, which makes him seem slightly uncertain onstage. Clinton seems almost too certain: her forcefulness masks an absence of detail--very forceful on health care (but where's the plan?), very forceful on ending the war in Iraq (but her actual position is more complicated than that). I'd just spent a few days with Edwards and my feelings about him haven't changed: he speaks simply, he has more details than the others. He's been the best candidate in this race so far.

As for the middle tier--Dodd, Biden and Richardson--nothing to write home about. Biden had a lovely moment when Brian Williams asked if he had the discipline not to be a "gaffe machine" and all-purpose motormouth. He said, "Yes." And he didn't blabber too much during the rest of the debate. Didn't distinguish himself much, either. Asked what sacrifices he'd ask of the American people with regard to global warming, he did the old Manhattan Project riff...conveniently forgetting the sacrifice. In fact, what's the point of being a middle-tier candidate if you can't get bold and specific and truthy and push the front-runners?

http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/04/spu...

Gov. Bill Richardson on Tavis Smiley March 21, 2007

Tavis: Alberto Gonzalez happens to be a member of your community. Is this guy gonna survive? He's the first Hispanic to have that job.

Richardson: Yeah, I know. I'm rooting for him, I like the guy, I know him. I hope he survives, but he's got to clean up his act and at least know what's happening in his department. He, at that press conference, said "Well, I didn't know anything about this." When you're heading a Cabinet agency—I did at the Department of Energy—and it's very hard to do that, 'cause you got thousands of people working for you.

But you gotta know what is happening with U.S. attorneys, because these are the top Justice Department attorneys in every state. So, he's gotta get more engaged, he's gotta clean up his act, he's gotta be forthcoming. I think the Congress needs to really investigate, but if I were the White House, I'd say "I'm gonna let Karl Rove testify, I'm gonna put everything on the table, I'm gonna let Harriet Miers, the former legal counsel.

I'm gonna have Alberto Gonzalez. They shouldn't be testifying in private. They should do it openly before the American people. That's a separation of powers. We should do that.

Tavis: It occurs to me now, listening to you talk about your friend who you know, Mr. Gonzalez, it draws a stark contrast between—I haven't checked where all the other candidates are, but I know Obama is on record very clearly saying Gonzalez should step down. I suspect other Democrats running for president are maybe saying the same thing. That's a contrast between you and others on whether or not this guy should step down.

Richardson: That's right. I do believe that it's up to a president to make those decisions about Cabinet members. Obviously, Alberto's very damaged, and he's gotta be frank and testify and do what has to happen. But I think that's up to the president.

Tavis: So you would not call for his stepping down right now.

Richardson: No, no. And you know what? Part of it maybe is because he's the highest-ranking Hispanic ever.

Tavis: But wrongdoing is wrongdoing, though. If he did wrong.

Richardson: Well, I think it's more a lack of attention, lack of a plan, lack of being thorough. He's too much the president's lawyer. He's too much of a political person. And I recognize that.

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archiv...

Texas Monthly magazine by Mimi Swartz. Here's an excerpt:

Two years ago, rich and powerful Texans said lawsuits were ruining the state’s economy and needed to be fairer. Today, thanks to tort reform, they are fairer for business. Ordinary people are out of luck.

LIKE A LOT OF OLD-FASHIONED TEXANS, Alvin Berry is the kind of man who bears the pain and indignities of life with good grace. At 73, Alvin has never been a rich man, but in his youth he managed to maneuver himself from the rolling plains of Central Texas to the industrialized eastern corner of the state, where he worked his way up to maintenance superintendent at a chemical plant in Texas City. After he retired, he moved to a small ranch near Izoro, in Lampasas County, on property inherited by his wife of almost fifty years, Carla Jean. Despite the twinkle in his eyes and his love of a good story, Alvin is not a frivolous man: He wears his snowy-white hair parted in the middle and brushed back, Depression-era-style, is an elder of his church, votes Republican, and, for most of his life, never dreamed of involving himself in something as crazy as a lawsuit.

But Alvin also has, in common with many Texans, a keenly developed sense of fairness, and something happened two years ago that struck him as just plain wrong. He had endured several surgeries: a hip replacement in 1999, which required additional surgery in 2000, and in 2002, a triple bypass, after which he experienced uncontrolled bleeding and heart failure; the doctors had to open him up again right on his hospital bed. Alvin made no complaint; as Carla Jean pointed out, those doctors had saved his life. But then, in 2003, Alvin got some lab tests with disturbing results. He’d been having kidney stones, and now his prostate-specific antigen test showed an elevated score. He didn’t like that; the nurse at the chemical plant had been a stickler for this test, so he knew that a high score could indicate cancer. His family doctor was worried enough to send him to a urologist, and that is when the trouble started. Don’t worry, Alvin recalls the doctor telling him. Kidney stones can elevate your PSA. Go home. Relax. But five months later, in September, Alvin still had stones, and when he took Carla Jean in for her physical, he asked a nurse to check his PSA. It was up again, to 86 from 12.6. He called his urologist, who, a little more brusquely, told him not to worry. But Alvin couldn’t stop worrying. In November he got it checked again; now his level was 166. “Then he got all excited,” Alvin says of his doctor, who immediately ordered a biopsy.

The news wasn’t good: Alvin had prostate cancer, and it had already spread to his bones in twenty places. Right away the doctor put him on daily medication and a $4,000 injection three times a year. The money wasn’t a big problem—Alvin had insurance—but he couldn’t help stewing about his predicament. “If he’d caught it earlier, it wouldn’t have been in my bones,” Alvin says. It bothered him too that the doctor hadn’t looked him in the eye when he’d delivered the bad news and that he’d never said he was sorry, even as he gave Alvin, at best, five years to live. “I’ll tell you what upset me so much,” he says today. “Other than that, I was in pretty good health. We had a ranch out in the country, goats and cattle.” Because Alvin didn’t want his wife to be left alone in the middle of nowhere, they sold the house and part of the ranch and moved into a modest brick home atop a hill in Copperas Cove, outside Killeen. He tried to control his anger, but he felt his final years had been stolen from him: “That doctor thought he was right and the world was wrong. He didn’t give me the opportunity to make the decision of what to do with my life.”

Personally, Alvin had always been against lawsuits. He thought there were too many of them, and he didn’t think people should be able to win multimillion-dollar awards for situations they could have prevented, like the smokers who sued tobacco companies. Alvin had voted for Proposition 12 back in 2003, which amended the Texas constitution to limit noneconomic damages (usually pain and suffering) in medical malpractice cases to $250,000. “I think there are too many frivolous lawsuits,” he says. “But you ought to have the right to sue if you’ve been wronged.” Alvin sure didn’t think what had happened to him was frivolous, and he didn’t want to give his doctor the chance to be so arrogantly dismissive of anyone else. So on a sunny Saturday in April 2004, he found himself in a Hillsboro coffee shop with a pretty auburn-haired lawyer named Kelly Reddell.

Kelly had good news and bad news. The good news was, in her opinion, that Alvin had definitely been the victim of malpractice. The bad news was that it would probably take up to two years to litigate, and if he won the case, Alvin would take home substantially less than the maximum of $250,000 the state of Texas had decided an injury like his could be worth. “Is this something you are ready to sign on for?” she asked.

Here's a link to the whole story: http://www.hobb.org/index.php?option=com_c...

I like Obama.

When I come to accept that Kucinich and Dodd are long shots, Obama is my clear second choice after Edwards.

I welcome any Obama supporters to help me feel more comfortable with Obama's progressive credentials.

One of my biggest concerns has been Obama's soft support for middle class issues as assessed by the Drum Major Institute. Specifically, the Drum Major Institute evaluated the whole Senate based on 8 key votes to support the middle class, from protecting social security to fair trade to Medicare drug protections to the minimum wage:



Obama got just a "C" for throwing the middle class under the bus on two key votes. See http://www.drummajorinstitute.com/congress...

Obama voted in favor of corporate immunity from responsibility and against consumer protections when he voted in favor of the ironically named "The Class Action Fairness Act" which overturned almost 200 years of law protecting consumers in civil rights, worker protection, product liability and consumer fraud cases.

Likewise, Obama voted to water down safety and environmental protections like the Safe Drinking Water Act when he voted in favor of Bush's Energy Policy Act of 2005.

These votes cause me some concern.

Also, Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, devotes must criticism to the progressive wing of the Democratic party, which is the wing of the party I identify with. Here are a few quotes I was uncomfortable with:

"I also think my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times. I believe in the free market, competition, and entrepreneurship, and think no small number of government programs don’t work as advertised..."

"We Democrats are just, well, confused. There are those who still champion the old-time religion, defending every New Deal and Great Society program from Republican encroachment, achieving ratings of 100 percent from the liberal interest groups ..."

"Yet our debate on education seems stuck between those who want to dismantle the public school system and those who would defend an indefensible status quo, between those who say money makes no difference in education and those who want more money without any demonstration that it will be put to good use ..."

"That Reagan’s message found such a receptive audience spoke not only to his skills as a communicator; it also spoke to the failures of liberal government… Nevertheless, by promising to side with those who worked hard, obeyed the law, cared for their families, and loved their country, Reagan offered Americans a sense of a common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster ..."

Also, the Nation magazine did a critical analysis of Obama which I found very persuasive in its criticism of his record as a progressive: http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=2...

Finally, I get a stronger idea of Edwards’s progressive priorities from the issue pages of his website as compared to Obama's:

http://johnedwards.com/about/issues /
http://origin.barackobama.com/issues /

I like Obama. He is one of four candidates I really hope for, and if you exclude two very long-shot candidates (Kucinich and Dodd), Obama is definitely my second favorite after Edwards.

I'm all ears if any Obama supporters want to convince me that Obama should be the progressive voters' choice.

P.S. One area where Obama is arguably more progressive than Edwards is gun control. Obama has written, "I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturer’s lobby." See The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p.215 Oct 1, 2006. Obama would ban the sale or transfer of all semi-automatic weapons, and would increase state restrictions on the purchase and possession of firearms, and would require manufacturers to provide child-safety locks with firearms. Edwards favors background checks for gun show sales, but is otherwise less oriented toward gun control. Frankly, I can live with either candidate's position on this issue, and I can see how both positions have good support among progressive voters, but I do wonder if Obama's position is a very tough sell in parts of the country, and I applaud Obama's courage in standing by that position.

The Drum Major Institute evaluated the whole Senate based on 8 key votes to support the middle class, from protecting social security to fair trade to Medicare drug protections to the minimum wage:



Only 9% of the Senate (all Democrats) were awarded the highest grade of "A" for supporting the middle class on all 8 issues:



Hillary was one of those 9 Senators who got an "A" for consistently supporting the middle class (along with Boxer, Kennedy, Kerry, Sarbanes, Corzine, Lautenberg, Leahy, and Feingold). For comparison, both McCain and Hagel got an "F".

http://www.drummajorinstitute.com/congress...

Hillary is way too DLC for my taste, but she's hardly "the most right wing" while Biden and Richardson remain in the race.

If you need some good reasons to support Hillary in the general election if we do not succeed in nominating a more progressive candidate, why don't you start with the 8 issues and key votes identified by the Drum Major Institute.

Top 10 Problems with Richardson

1. Pro-NAFTA/Pro-CAFTA/Anti-Fair Trade;

2. Supported Vouchers for Private Schools (draining public school funding);

3. Shut down presidential recount despite suspicious circumstances;

4. Supported medical savings account approach to broken health care system;

5. Hawkish on military bases and homeland security;

6. Supports revenue reduction via tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-wealthy;

7. Supports giving churches access to federal funds to provide faith-based social services;

8. Has much praise for Bush's immigration plans;

9. Richardson is a favorite of the DLC; and

10. Weakness on Civil Rights (see below)



Richardson's Top 10 Civil Rights Weaknesses (So Many, I Need Another Top 10 List)

1. Richardson’s support for mandatory jail time, even for non-violent offenders;

2. Richardson’s support for the death penalty;

3. Richardson’s vote to abolish habeas corpus in death penalty appeals;

4. Richardson’s opposition to offering the option of life-without-parole as an alternative to the death penalty;

5. Richardson’s support for prosecuting minors as adults;

6. Richardson’s support for expanding the number of federal crimes punishable by death;

7. Richardson’s support for eliminating parole for anyone convicted of a violent crime;

8. Richardson’s support for eliminating automatic citizenship for all children born in the USA;

9. Richardson’s support for limiting access to our court system for people hurt by negligent hospitals; an

10. Richardson’s vote in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act against gay marriage.



Top 10


Sources:
http://www.ontheissues.org/Bill_Richardson...
http://www.whereistand.com/BillRichardson/...
http://vote-smart.org/npat.php?old=true&ca...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151631...

Rated 0% by the LCV - he's a complete anti-environment nightmare.

He voted to fund expanded road-building in National Forests.

He voted to drill for oil in ANWR.

He voted to terminate CAFE standards.

He voted against promoting hydrogen-powered vehicles.

He votes against setting the goal of reducing oil usage by 40% by 2025.

Rated 0% by NARAL - he's a complete anti-choice nightmare.

He voted to ban all D&X abortions.

He voted to outlaw abortions on Military Base regardless of any risk to the mother.

He voted against teen pregnancy education because it was not abstanence only.

He voted against funding for minority & women-owned business.

He voted against expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation.

Rated 100% by the Christian Coalition - he's an equal rights nightmare.

Rated just 12% by APHA - he's a public health nightmare.

He voted for Medicare means-testing.

He voted for limiting the self-employment health deduction.

He voted against increasing the Medicaid rebate for producing generics.

He voted against allowing Medicare to negotiate bulk purchase discounts for prescription drug.

He voted against expanding the enrollment period for Medicare Part D.

He voted for capping negligent hospital corporation and careless nursinghome liability at $250,000.

Rated 22% by the ARA - he'sg an anti-senior nightmare.

He favors privatizing Social Security.

He favors a private schools vouchers system to drain finds and students from our public education system.

He voted against funding smaller classes.

He favors tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

He voted against prioritizing national debt reduction over more tax cutsfor corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

He voted to extend the tax cuts on capital gains and dividends and the Paris Hilton estate tax.

Rated 92% by the CATO institute - he's a fair trade nightmare.

He voted to renew 'fast track' unchecked presidential trade agreement authority.

He voted to implement CAFTA.

He voted to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act.

He voted to deploy the Star Wars missile defense boondoggle.

He voted against McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform.

He voted against restricting "soft money" contributions.

He voted against establishing the Senate Office of Public Integrity.

He voted to allow lobbyist gifts to Congress.

He voted for on increasing penalties for drug offenses.



I'm not a crazy big fan of Hillary, but which of these votes makes you prefer Hagel over Hillary?

Go to OnTheIssues.org and see how your favorite candidate compares to other candidates on the issues which matter to you: http://www.ontheissues.org/2008_Speculatio...

Here are some graphs based on the candidates' positions (the graphs are just generalizations so be sure to check out where the candidates stand in more detail at each candidate's issue page at OnTheIssues.org):

# Joe Biden -





# Wes Clark -





# Hillary Clinton -





# Christopher Dodd -





# John Edwards -





# Al Gore -





# Mike Gravel -





# Dennis Kucinich -





# Barack Obama -





# Bill Richardson -





# Tom Vilsack -