In lieu of Kerry picking Edwards as his running mate, I thought I'd flash back to the primaries and what I wrote about Edwards and his central message in January.

I do have to give some props to Edwards for running a relatively positive campaign. I do like that about him, though he still seems sufficiently fuzzy on specifics. When asked this morning in an interview on NPR what message of his resonated most with voters, Edwards responded that it was his message of two Americas, one where people prospered and another where people did without.

Now, most Americans probably like to see themselves in the group of Have-Nots. It appeals to their sensibilities, no matter how far from the truth it might be. And affluent Liberals probably still hold to a fantasy of mass hordes of the downtrodden and poor in America that they're helping by balancing the wealth through "progressive" taxes. The facts are far from this perception.

We're the wealthiest nation on the planet, and the fact is, the greatest inequalities are not between members of our own society, but between the richest and poorest nations themselves.

Of course, perception is everything...and people always like to buy into the message that they're doing worse than they actually are, even if personal income is up, the economy is still growing, and unemployment is less than 6% (compared to highs of 11-12% in the past 30 years).

The Democrats are trying to unseat the incumbents, and that means a two-pronged approach: Try to make Iraq and the American economy seem far worse than they are.

Kerry's going to keep telling everyone that Iraq is a mismanaged disaster, even after toppling the regime in three weeks, steadily rebuilding, killing or capturing virtually every former regime leader, putting Saddam on trial, and transferring sovereignty to the Iraqis.

Edwards will be telling us we're living in a second Depression even with job growth (but not enough!), low inflation, and a host of other positive economic indicators.

It'll be interesting to see if the American public (or at least enough of a percentage in swing states) actually buys what they're selling.

Personally I don't think they will.