"I don't understand how somebody could vote, five or six critical votes, one way in the Senate and then make your campaign the opposite positions," Feingold said, expanding on comments he made a week ago to the Appleton (Wisconsin) Post-Crescent.  "That doesn't give me confidence that if the person became president that they would continue the kind of policies that they are using in the Democratic primary.  I'm more likely to believe what they did in the Senate."

"You have to consider what the audience is, and obviously these are very popular positions to take when you are in a primary where you are trying to get the progressive vote.  But wait a minute — there were opportunities to vote against the bankruptcy bill, there was an opportunity to vote against the China [trade] deal.  Those are the moments where you sort of find out where somebody is.  So I think, people are being taken in a little bit that now he is taking these positions."

I don't mean to beat up on Sen. Edwards, but for a man with his wasted political gifts and possibilities, it's hard not to.  When he had the power he so seems to deplore, he voted with the powerful on almost every single major issue.  As is so often lately, it is left to conservatives to remind progressives how low our standards have become.  From Charles Krauthammer:

Edwards has made much of his renunciation of his Iraq war vote.  But he has not stopped there.  His entire campaign has been an orgy of regret and renunciation:

As senator, he voted in 2001 for a bankruptcy bill that he now denounces.

As senator, he voted for storing nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain.  Twice.  He is now fiercely opposed.

As senator, he voted for the Bush-Kennedy No Child Left Behind education reform.  He now campaigns against it, promising to have it "radically overhauled."

As senator, he voted for the Patriot Act, calling it "a good bill . . . and I am pleased to support it."  He now attacks it.

As senator, he voted to give China normalized trade relations.  Need I say?  He now campaigns against liberalized trade with China as a sellout of the middle class to the great multinational agents of greed, etc.

 
According to the latest Novak political gossip, Edwards' political career is not over.  He could end up as A.G.—in an Obama administration:

Illinois Democrats close to Sen. Barack Obama are quietly passing the word that John Edwards will be named attorney general in an Obama administration.

Installation at the Justice Department of multimillionaire trial lawyer Edwards would please not only the union leaders supporting him for president but organized labor in general.  The unions relish the prospect of an unequivocal labor partisan as the nation's top legal officer.

In public debates, Obama and Edwards often seem to bond together in alliance against front-running Sen. Hillary Clinton.  While running a poor third, Edwards could collect a substantial bag of delegates under the Democratic Party's proportional representation.  Edwards then could try to turn his delegates over to Obama in the still unlikely event of a deadlocked Democratic National Convention.