John Edwards announces

Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards announced his candidacy for President from New Orleans' Ninth Ward this morning. It capped off a series of what I would call rolling announcements, throughout which: today's announcement was announced, a YouTube video was released discussing today's announcement, a web site snafu which revealed the announcement site a day before the actual announcement, and so on. So now, officially, he is running for President.

I'm excited about Edwards as a presidential candidate for a number of reasons. I think his message is effective, I think his stated intentions are sincere and worthy, and I think he's a progressive candidate the party could unite behind without polarizing much more of the electorate. This week was tough, I think, for announcing your candidacy - the death of former President Gerald Ford took a prohibitive bite out of the news cycle - but getting out before Hillary and Obama was important.

The media is crazy about those two at the moment, despite the fact that in most primary polls being conducted, Edwards is winning or tied for first. I feel like party members are hanging back at the moment, waiting to see who breaks how and how hard. The Edwards agenda is clearly progressive and quite a bit to the left, and on many issues near and dear to Democrats, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have yet to stake out clearly defined positions. Or at least, clearly defined recent positions.

It is going to be fun to watch, and a discussion process that will likely end up benefiting the party in general. Edwards is very capable of distinguishing himself between now and the election, and he certainly has enough time to do so.