I have a slightly different (probably wishful) interpretation of the linked wife’s decision. While not true of Bush’s hardest core base, I think even perhaps the majority of Bush voters convinced themselves they were voting for “compassion” — and wanted to see themselves as such. The ‘artful’ (and unscrupulously exploitive, disingenuous) co-optation of “compassionate” to adjoin “conservatism” was once-upon-a-time a brilliant stroke of Roveian propaganda. But now, six-plus years later, how many Bush voters feel they got robbed by a bait-and-switch? The cognitive dissonance is too exposed for cover anymore.

And yet I think what such voters may have retained is that they consciously or unconsciously realize they really did want to vote for compassion. And so now as they look elsewhere in their post-betrayal enlightenment, the degree to which they feel betrayed may focus precisely on the degree to which compassion wound up never being more than rhetoric to George Bush (and so far below the pockets of CEOs and the hymnals of born-agains in his priorities that compassion didn’t even get table scraps).

This woman’s analysis of why she supports Edwards says to me that she has had a lightbulb moment far beyond just the betrayals of one dim bulb-in-chief: she’s now actively looking for the sounds of compassion with follow-through, something, someone, with a track record (and shame on the media for never really investigating and showing the nation in 1999-2000 that Bush as Gov. of Texas had no such track record). While John Edwards was skillfully representing the victims of corporate negligence, George Bush was skillfully getting the state of Texas to pay for his baseball team’s new stadium, the sale of which bloated his bank account. There’s the kind of contrastive analysis I hope this woman represents which many many Republicans and swing voters are making.

The link by z. was interesting. I wonder if Elizabeth Edwards’ military family background and the Edwards’ Southern upbringing in particular inspired the choice. Electoral choices are often cultural, which allows Rs to win even if their ideas are opposed by the population at large.

HC has a of negative baggage in that dept., fair or not, and it scares me. Not that her politics totally appeals to me either, but positions alone don’t win elections. Anyway, the wife’s arguments make sense … good brief for EE.

Enough to give a person hope.