Hang on John, we've got to get on with this

John Edwards is finishing up his "Marathon for the Middle Class" in Iowa:



From the campaign:

Another day, another poll showing John Edwards growing momentum and the strength of our campaign in Iowa: Clinton 30%, Edwards 29%, Obama 22%.

But even more interestingly, the polling firm - InsiderAdvantage - adjusted for second choice preferences of people whose first choice candidate didn't reach the required 15 percent threshold. InsiderAdvantage used this methodology to correctly predict the outcome of the 2004 caucuses.

Using this methodology, the polling firm projects a result of:

Edwards: 41%
Clinton: 34%
Obama: 25%

Way too early to put any major support toward anyone, but that said, I likes me some John Edwards. But Peter Fenn, at The Hills' Pundit Blog, and who is usually not insane, has this today:

His central theme is that Washington is corrupt. Lobbyists and money control the process. He alone can fight it and fix it.

Even if you accept that this rather over-arching, simplistic notion has some merit, Edwards is probably not the best one to be making the argument.

After all, he is the recipient of over $6.5 million in trial lawyer money by July of this year alone, and he and his surrogate organizations, One America and Alliance for America, respectively, took over $750,000 from one donor (“Bunny” Mellon, a descendant of the Mellon family of whom Edwards recently spoke disparagingly as part of the “Gilded Age” of America, though he has since dropped the reference). And, as we know, he never attempted to change the system as a senator.

Yep. Wake the neighbors, call the kids, Edwards took money from 527 PACs. And from trial lawyers. The same trial lawyers who the far right would like put out of business, the kind of trial lawyers who, like Edwards, make Big Business™ and Corporations take responsibility for their actions.

All trial lawyers aren't Johnnie Cochran, or even Gloria Allred. They're also guys running solo practices like an anonymous blogger I know who specializes in employment contract law. Yep, if you've been discriminated against in your job by WalMart, this is the guy you'd go to, to make it right for the little guy.

Look, I'm sorry we don't have goddam publicly financed elections like many sensible countries. Here, all candidates have to be $100,000 per night whores to whoever will support them. That doesn't always predict how they'll behave once in office, Cheney/Halliburton notwithstanding.

But I can think of a lot worse supporters than trial lawyers.

Corporate lawyers, for example, like Scooter Libby and Al Gonzales.