Submitted by Jim Herold, Apr 27, 2007 10:13

Last night's forum was a true blessing to actually be able to hear from all of the candidates in their own voices rather than the televised snippets on the evening news and cable news programs who's intent is to so desperately choose a candidate based on the number of people at their campaign stops rather than their beliefs and stands on the issues. The program I believe exposed the spine of the contenders and it was nice and it was GREAT to see Senator Edwards back in the courageous posture that he showed during the early parts of the '04 campaign. To have shaken off the mushy mouth attempts to appeal to everyone by saying nothing that he was forced into by the blundering Kerry campaign. I feel that the twin scares of his wife's battle with cancer have further brought out his courage to stand up firmly and explain with great detail his take on the issues facing America both domestically and internationally. There was a tremendous difference between Senator Edwards, with his detailed, specific and concrete answers to the questions, and Barack Obama's pretending to be the heir of the Kennedy mystique while acting as the "Morning in America" Reagan of 1980 and Hillary Clinton's attempt to walk in her husband's shoes as the great charmer. Senator Edwards, with his thoughtful plans based on what is an obvious combination of a voracious studying and thoughtful deliberative thinking about the issues facing this nation showed the desperate need America has for a President that not only understands these issues with great depth but the courage to spell out his plans in detail without fear of alienating voters. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the typical candidates who while gaining strong points for their oratory skills still in the end say absolutely nothing. Senator Edwards, whom the media has only presented as the candidate dealing with his wife's cancer and his moral decision to run or not showed me last night why he should be the leader of the United States during what could be our most difficult and troubling attempt to remain relevant in this world and I was once again angered that the flawed campaign of Senator Kerry and the obvious voter scandals in Ohio kept his wise council out of the White House these last four very important years. But thankfully he showed us last night that he has the moral courage, character, and most importantly specific ideas to bring the ideals of America back in '08!

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