From the beginning of the campaign, I’ve always had a soft spot for John Edwards. If the Democrats really want to win this election, then they shouldn’t be wasting their time with Howard Dean or John Kerry. Wesley Clark has fizzled faster than anyone could have imagined, with all his false starts, stumbling, and inexperience. Dick Gephardt simply lacks the charisma to energize this party. The rest are a collection of liberal nutcases, like Al Sharpton.

But John Edwards is silky smooth. He’s got Southern charm and Ivy league eloquence. He oozes middle America. David Brooks, in the NY Times, agrees:

John Edwards has the most persuasive theory. He argues that most voters do not place candidates on a neat left-right continuum. But they are really good at sensing who shares their values. They are really good at knowing who respects them and who doesn’t. Edwards’s theory is that the Democrats’ besetting sin over the past few decades has been snobbery …

His campaign is based on the argument that the Democrats need to nominate a person from Middle America, not from the coastal educated class. “My campaign is a different Democratic campaign,” Edwards said in his announcement speech. “Not only will I run for the real America, I will run in the real America. . . . Democrats too often act like rural America is just someplace to fly over between a fund-raiser in Manhattan and a fund-raiser in Beverly Hills.”

He’s often called “Clinton Lite” — that is, Clinton without all the baggage. A quick look at the last several Democratic presidents will reveal that they all look and sound more like Edwards than Dean.

Edwards lacks the money to make a serious run at this, but he will likely end up as the VP for Dean or Clark or Kerry, which makes him the de facto candidate for 2008, I suppose.