hope vs. Kos; the (welcome) fall of the house of Edwards

Dan Gerstein in the WSJ on "The Decline of the Angry Left"...

Gerstein is an advisor to Sen. Lieberman-- and here, comments on one of the more interesting and probably the most overlooked features of this primary season: the rejection of John Edwards and the style and substance of his approach to politics. (I'd rate this third behind the Republican dramatic but predictable gnashing of teeth as #2-- and the Democrats unease and even repulsion to the Clintons as #1.)

Last Saturday's South Carolina Democratic primary will probably be remembered as the day when the party's emotional dam burst and many of the personal grievances and tensions that have built up over the past generation spilled out into the open -- unleashing a cascading series of freighted squabbles starring a who's who of post-Reagan Democrats (Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, John Kerry and of course Bill Clinton).

That's a shame, not just because it undermined the feel-good storyline of party unity, but more because it overshadowed a fateful statement South Carolina's Democrats made by embracing Barack Obama and exiting John Edwards out of the race. Indeed, at the exact moment their party leaders were loudly replaying the psychodramas of the 1990s (and to some extent the '60s), voters of both races were quietly resolving the pre-eminent conflict of the party's present -- between the politics of hope and the politics of Kos....

This conflict is not about ideology but about style. The truth is, over the past several years Democrats have bridged or buried most of the major issue splits that hobbled the party in the past, as evidenced by the absence of big policy debates in this campaign. That's left us to stew, particularly in the wake of John Kerry's embittering loss in 2004, over how we fight the other side. There is a clear generational split.

The Kossacks and their activist allies -- who skew toward the Boomers -- believe that Republicans are venal bordering on evil, and that the way Democrats will win elections and hold power is to one-up Karl Rove's divisive, bare-knuckled tactics. Their opponents within the party -- who skew younger and freer of culture war wounds -- believe that the way to win is offer voters a break from this poisonous tribal warfare and a compelling, inclusive vision for where we want to take the country....

This year's Democratic nominating battle is a far better barometer of the respective generational approaches within the party. That's because it is happening within the context of a true intra-party competition, there is no real disagreement on Iraq or any other core issue, and there is no incumbent. Not least of all, the two young attractive change candidates (Edwards and Obama) running against the establishment candidate (Hillary Clinton) have been offering opposite conceptions of change.

Mr. Edwards, after running as the sunny son of a mill worker in 2004, returned last year as the angry spear carrier of the hard-line left, running on a dark, conspiratorial form of populism and swapping in corporations for Republicans as the villain in his us-versus-them construct. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, has not just been selling possibilities and opportunities, but reconciliation and unity -- and promising to work with Republicans to meet the country's challenges. (Not surprisingly, throughout 2007, Mr. Edwards was the runaway favorite in the regular Kos reader straw poll -- besting Mr. Obama by 21 points as late as Jan. 2, 2008.)

Now that Mr. Edwards has formally dropped out of the race, we can say it's official -- hope and unity crushed resentment and division.

Iowa was perfectly set up for Mr. Edwards -- caucus format instead of primary, tilted heavily left, overwhelming white and rural, and a two-year head start in building an organization. But he lost by a healthy eight points to a black candidate, who, despite his rhetorical gifts and Oprah endorsement, came in less tested and less known. In New Hampshire, another overwhelmingly white state, he lost to Mr. Obama by 20 points.

The outcome in South Carolina was the most telling -- and arguably put the last nail in the coffin of Kos-ism. This was the state where Mr. Edwards and his drawl were born. This was the state he won by 15 points in 2004, even after losing Iowa and New Hampshire to John Kerry. And this was a state that was ostensibly most amenable to his arguments about being the most electable Democrat in red states. Yet Mr. Edwards was rejected by voters across the board, failing to win even a majority of the white vote (40%).

There is no question that Mr. Obama's margin in South Carolina was due in part to the racial makeup of the electorate. But to judge the relative strength of their respective messages, it pays to look at how the candidates did with voters of the other race.

Mr. Obama won 24% of white voters in this former bastion of the Confederacy -- 12 times the 2% share of black voters Mr. Edwards claimed. And the clear majority of those white Obama voters were under 30, a sign that the tide is turning toward Mr. Obama's cross-cultural politics even in the Old South....

Seeing the writing on the wall, as well as on his own blog, Markos Moulitsas -- Kos himself -- rejected the candidacy he himself helped spawn and announced (albeit grudgingly) on Dec. 12 that he would be voting for Mr. Obama via "a process of elimination."

Not exactly the most graceful concession, but the import is undeniable: Hope trumped Kos for Democrats. Now let's see what it will do for the rest of the country.