Who got my first contribution, and why.

I just made my first donation to a Presidential candidate today.
In this diary I'll explain who got my money and why.
First off---it wasn't Hillary. Why not? She doesn't need my money!
If she loses in the primaries, it certainly won't be because I didn't donate.
Second, I do prefer Hillary, as you may have deduced from a careful exegesis of my body of commentary.
Third, this contribution was to punish bad behavior and reward good behavior  at the same time.
So, who was it?

John Edwards.
Am I crazy? Or did I suddenly become not crazy? Well, no.
I have doubts about Edwards, which I have not overcome.
However, there are a lot of good things in his platform. Also, even though I don't have confidence in him at the moment, it's indisputable to me that he has forced the other candidates in the Progressive direction, most obviously by being the first candidate to come up with a plan to achieve universal health cover. The specific good behavior I'm rewarding is his pledge to meet with world leaders in the first 100 days of office to discuss global warming. This pledge will probably force the other candidates to say something similar, so again, he will affect the race in a good way, even if he is not the nominee.

The bad behavior I am "punishing" by donating to Edwards is Obama's.
While I lack faith in Edwards in a general sense, my worries about Obama are much more specific---that he will throw the left under the bus in the general election to win votes.
His attacks on plans with mandates, while not offering UHC himself, as well as his "crisis" rhetoric on Social Security---not to mention the pandering to black homophobes---do not demonstrate that Obama is going to fight for my values. Hillary will fight. Edwards will fight.

About the Obama-Krugman dust-up, you can find Krugman's response
at http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/...

"    On the whole, the Obama plan is better than I feared but not as comprehensive as I would have liked. It doesn’t quell my worries that Mr. Obama’s dislike of "bitter and partisan" politics makes him too cautious. But at least he’s come out with a plan.

And I was prepared to leave it at that — Obama’s plan was weaker than his rivals’ because it wasn’t universal, but I hoped that he would fix that in practice.

But then Obama started attacking his rivals from the right, denouncing their proposals using exactly the same false claims that conservatives will use to try to derail reform in the future.

And now, having been caught out on the facts, the Obama people respond with a personal attack, lifting quotes out of context to pretend that I never had problems with the plan. Something is very wrong here."

This explains the difference that has mystified some Obama supporters, between Krugman's tone now and six months ago.

Also, from "thirdestate" at Mydd is a very interesting theory:
http://www.mydd.com/...

"Why focus on Social Security at all, since it's not really a big problem? Why attack health care plans that have mandates, rather than say why your approach is better? And why in the world would your campaign attack Paul Krugman??

I've been considering these questions for some time, and I'm becoming more and more convinced that Obama is trying to win the "media primary" (which I referred to awhile ago). My suspicion is that Barack is attempting to appease/manipulate the class of establishment pundits, and with them the press corps as a whole. It's not a bad strategy as far as it goes. As Rove knew, if you can get the press to attack a candidate, you don't have to do it (or pay the price with higher negatives). An opponent, no matter how formidable, isn't so scary if he or she is busy fighting the press AND the opposing campaign. By making noises about Social Security and mandates, Obama is feeding the media beast. Heck, it might even work, if recent polls are any evidence.

What concerns me is that the beast is always hungry. I know Obama doesn't want to go on some crusade against the powers that be (look what that's done for Edwards), but do you really have to suck up to them that much? Do you really think the press will stay friendly to you forever? Did you read that execrable Washington Post piece on the "Madrassa" rumor?

So while Obama's (or should I say David Axelrod's) strategy might make sense, I find it very, very worrisome."

There's a final reason to support Edwards rather than Obama, IMO.
Edwards  vs. Clinton is very distinct choice. Obama vs. Clinton is not.
There will be a much healthier debate between Clintons'
and Edwards' than we are seeing now between Obama and Clinton.