In an interview in today's Washington Post, Majority Leader Harry Reid made it clear that he may be open to compromise with the GOP when it comes to dealing with Iraq. This shift, which seems to be coming as we all brace of a September showdown over the war, is obviously going to upset some people (myself included) who believe he, nor the rest of the majority-blessed Democrats, have not done enough to end this war in their eight months in power.

I will be more than upfront when I say that, from time to time since this campaign began and since he has entered the Senate, I have been somewhat critical of Barack Obama. Much of this criticism came about for me the way it came about for many people – he seemed far too cautious. However, in the aftermath of the YouTube/CNN debate in which he was attacked for saying he would engage in rigorous diplomacy, he has been nothing short of stellar. It seemed as if, on that night, he finally realized that Clinton was running away with this thing and that he needed to show the differences between them.

Ever since that debate, the race for the Democratic nomination has more or less been a two-on-two contest between Clinton and Obama. The back and fourth between the two has been electric: she called him "naïve," he called her "Bush/Cheney light." She scolded him like an angry mother for his judgment on Pakistan, he showed her up for judgment, or lack thereof, on the vote to authorize Iraq. And so on.

Today marks the one year anniversary of Ned Lamont's victory over Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic Primary. It was a special day for me; so much so that I wrote my thesis on it. After a brief introduction, it began like this:

American progressives have a problem in the post 9/11 world and that problem is how we deal with terrorism. To a lesser extent than in 2004, when Karl Rove and the Bush team successfully painted John Kerry as "weak" when it came to dealing with national security, terrorism will still be on the minds of many American voters when they go the polls to select our next president.  We know this to be true not from polls, though polls there are, but because the sad reality is that, no matter who is elected next November, they will be forced to deal with the foreign policy of George W. Bush. With our reputation tainted abroad and our troops bogged down in the mountains of Afghanistan and the deadly streets of Iraq, decisions need to be made. But what kind of decisions do we, as progressives, hope are made?

I am going to be quite clear from the start of this diary that I am currently supporting John Edwards and have been since the start of this campaign. With that said, I have always been politically attracted to Barack Obama. When I saw his speech at the DNC in 2004, I knew that I had just witnessed someone who would soon be one of the leaders of our party. But then he let me down. After following his campaign and arrival in the Senate, I expected him to emerge as a powerful voice for our cause. He had run an anti-war campaign, had a liberal record in the state legislature, and seemed like he had really gotten the attention of a lot of people who, had he said anything important, might listen as opposed to if it came out of John Kerry or Patrick Leahy's mouth. But when he got to the Senate, he didn't do that. He played the cautious card. He stayed in the background. He wrote another book. He lost me.

Anyone who has not been living under a rock since Monday night's CNN/YouTube Democratic debate knows that, for the first time, the Hillary-Obama lovefest has seemingly come to an end over an issue that, in light of the past seven years of Oval Office rule, you would think to be a no-brainer: diplomacy.

What is diplomacy again? I know it's been so long since we last heard it:  

Main Entry: di·plo·ma·cy
Function: noun
1 : the art and practice of conducting negotiations between nations
2 : skill in handling affairs without arousing hostility : TACT

So what is all the fuss about? This is the question:

QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.

In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

This weekend brought news regarding Al Gore's potential 2008 run from the highest of sources: his daughter. In an interview with ABC News, she said the following:

"He's really not going to get in the race," said Kristin Gore when asked if she had any special insight into her father's political plans. "He's really liberated working on things he cares about."

Now I know what a lot people are going to say - we've heard these denials before and they don't mean anything until the man himself speaks up. And while that may be logical reasoning (get it?), I think that soon enough the man himself is going to announce that he will not be a candidate in 2008 and many people (including myself) will feel a good deal of sadness. So to the Gore fans out there, I fear that Gore Rd. is closed and we must seek an alternate route.

The Senate debated the Levin-Reed Amendment to the defense appropriations bill from 3:15 PM yesterday afternoon to about 11:05 this morning (EDT).

Levin-Reed will require redeployment of troops out of Iraq within 120 days of enactment. The GOP doesn't want to have to vote on this amendment, Rs in re-election campaigns don't want to go on record in opposition to bringing the troops home, so they are refusing to allow debate to end.  Since the Rs won't vote to close off debate, Give em hell Harry Reid has forced the Republicans to actually talk, old school filibuster style, until they either agree to stop debate or reach the 30-hour cap.

As expected, the 11:00 cloture vote failed by 7 votes.

The vote was 52-47. Four Republicans voted for it: Senators Olympia Snowe, Gordon Smith, Chuck Hagel, and Susan Collins. Collins' support for the bill is a new defection from the Republicans.

I am currently doing a science experiment of sorts at OpenLeft. As you all know, OpenLeft is touted as a "new" blog and I am wondering just how true that might be. The easiest way to determine that, at least to me, is by trying to see if there is any difference between who supports what candidate and where they are from.

With that said, please vote in the below poll and then indicate who you voted for and what state you are from in the comments section. I am going to compare the results here vs. the results at OpenLeft and see if there is any noticeable difference between the two blogs in terms of who is supporting who to see how different (if at all) they really are.

UPDATE: I cannot change the poll now, but a lot of people voting undecided are essentially voting for Gore. If you choose to do that, please just indicate that in the comments section. Thanks!

UPDATE II: It seems as if Edwards' supporters are the only ones willing to speak up about it. It would really help if others would do the same so I could prove a point. But, then again, this proves a point too, I suppose...

UPDATE III: There is now a heated battle for third place between Kucinich and Hillary. Hilarious.

For three days next week, John Edwards will take a break from the ritualistic give and take of a modern presidential campaign and embark on the "Road to One America" tour to highlight poverty in this country by not just speaking about it, but by experiencing it.

"It’s an effort to show the rest of the country how 37 million Americans live their lives in poverty every single day," an Edwards aide said. "It’s not only their workplaces -- it’s their homes and the places they get health care."

Mike Allen of the Politico sums up the Edwards campaign:

Edwards has been putting a new emphasis on his message of economic fairness as a way to make himself more than the anti-war candidate. He also wants to mop up union endorsements and get more traction among lower-income, working voters without a college education. But he’s so wealthy that he has struggled to mold a populist image.

Much of the political world's attention is focused this Fourth of July holiday on the Clintons three-day visit to Iowa and what exactly that means to the 2008 campaign. And while it is still early to judge the impact that Bill has on the Iowa voters in terms of drumming up support for Hillary, we know one thing for sure - they both know how important Iowa is to her campaign.

During the third Democratic presidential debate last night at Howard University, Hillary Clinton was asked what she would do to deal with the situation in Darfur. In all her wisdom, she suggesting setting up a no-fly zone and then offered the following quote:

“If they fly into it, we will shoot down their planes"

Candidates have been dancing around the issue of Darfur for years. It is clear to almost everyone in the world that there is a genocide occuring there. But does that mean the US needs to do anything about it? Aren't the same people who oppose the Bush "liberate the world" rhetoric the same people who advocate intervention in Darfur?

On March 16, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for President of the United States. Seeing a nation torn apart by social inequality, racial turmoil, and a misguided war in Vietnam, Kennedy understood that the country required leadership and that it was time for someone to step up, square off against the powerful interests he himself had once been a part of, and start telling the truth. For eighty days, he traveled around the country, inspired people, and asked Americans once again to hear the call of the trumpet that his brother had once asked Americans to hear - only this time the trumpet did not sound in defense of our spirit abroad but for the defense of our spirit here at home. Thirty-nine years later, John Edwards is seeking to recapture the spirit behind RFK's 1968 fateful campaign and, so far, he is doing a hell of a job.

Lately, it is hard to escape Mitt Romney. In today's Washington Post there is an article which highlights Republican candidate Mitt Romney's early state strategy. The Boston Globe is running the second story in a series of seven (Part One is here). Last month, his handsome mug was on the cover of Time. But behind the glamor shots and the puff pieces, who is the real Mitt Romney - the Romney that, as things are start to indicate, stands a very good chance of being our opponent in the 2008 general election.

This past week has seen two major political figures in American politics today hint at the prospect of running as third party candidates in the 2008 election. Yesterday's news cycle was dominated by the announcement by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg that he was leaving the Republican Party. Having been rumored to be exploring a potential independent presidential campaign for months, Bloomberg made what could be the first step in that direction by leaving his party of the last six years. Today, former presidential candidate and perennial spoiler Ralph Nader indicated that he may enter the 2008 election. What does this tell us? Well, a lot of things of course. But, to me anyway, what this should tell us is that, with the looming threat of big-name third party candidates, we need to nominate the best possible Democrat to be our nominee in 2008 to avoid Democrats and those who lean towards the Democratic Party in a presidential election dissenting towards the third party likes of Nader and Bloomberg and whoever else joins this race.

Caught up in the high-profile shuffle that has been the contest for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination thus far is the senior Senator from Connecticut Chris Dodd. Labeled as a solid member of the "second tier," polling in the single digits in most states, and barely getting time to speak during the first two debates of the cycle, Dodd has been saying all the things that many people on this blog and elsewhere want to hear right now but has not quite registered with many people. It would be easy to blame the mainstream media for this - they seemingly love the "three way" race between Clinton, Obama, and Edwards and don't seem to think 2008 will be the year of the insurgent darkhorse. But, my friends, I think it is time those of us with the power to propel such a darkhorse give a man like Chris Dodd a second look.

Around this time four years ago, I was confused about which Democratic presidential candidate I should support and I took the advice of a friend of mine and looked into the underdog campaign of Howard Dean. It didn't take me long to see that he was my guy - his voice seemed to be the loudest when it came to opposing a war I never agreed with, he was talking about universal healthcare, and he seemed like the only Democrat in the field with the fire I wanted to see as a young man involved in politics for the first time.

Four years later, I am a different man. Four years later, our party is different. A lot has changed since the summer of 2003 - a Democrat was defeated despite the efforts of my generation. I went through college, took a class on Lincoln that made me see compromise in a different light than I had in 2003, and, sad to say, lost some of the idealism I had back then too. Things have certainly changed and that is, to me, what makes picking a my Democrat of choice in 2008 is so damn hard.

Today, if the weathermen are correct, it will reach 64 degrees in Connecticut. Not that I need to remind anyone, but January 6 in New England is usually a day where the heat is cranked up and snow is falling. However today the windows in my house are open and people are walking around the streets of New Haven in tshirts and shorts. Call it what you will - global warming, a January heat wave, the vast left wing meteorology conspiracy of Al Gore - but let's face it: this just aint right.