Media Credit: Rodrigo Huerta — THE BATTALION [Click to enlarge]

John Edwards (D) Former Senator, North Carolina

Travis Holland: Edwards is in line with most other Democratic candidates in that his campaign consists mostly of Bush-bashing and pointing fingers at the current administration. But Edwards' presidential bid offers something extra to American voters - a completely new identity.

Edwards' campaign focuses on his small-town, down-home Carolinan image, and claims to focus on the common man. This seems odd in contrast to Edwards' real life and voting history. Here in the real world, Edwards is a multimillionaire lawyer who owns the most expensive home in the county he lives in.

He wants to provide universal healthcare to everyone in the U.S., which isn't a bad idea in itself, but he wants to charge the common man new backbreaking taxes to do it.

Like other Democrats, Edwards voted to go to Iraq and now wants to leave, saying that he would call for a complete withdrawal within a year of being elected. It's fine to completely change your stance on an issue when your political aspirations change, but Edwards goes a little too far in a statement on his website that says we need to use weapons other than bombs and that "we need to re-engage the world with the full weight of our moral leadership."

Senator Edwards will have to excuse me, but thus far in the War on Terror, Muslim extremists have not responded very well to moral leadership.

If you would like the alter ego of a shifty liberal senator for your next president, John Edwards is your man.

Chelsea Lankes: Edwards and his $400 hair cut, has tried to appear as the most attractive and least hypocritical of all candidates, appealing to the middle class America while also campaigning against poverty to reach the working class. Edwards has adamantly spoken against the war in Iraq and he even admitted to mistakenly voting for the war in 2002, he said.

"I was wrong. Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told - and what many of us believed and argued - was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda."

Though our country is looking for a change, Edwards' dream of an anti-Bush America is exactly that, just a dream. With unrealistic ideas for improving our country such as universal health care, in which every American is awarded health care at a cost of only $120 billion a year - cost covered by ending Bush's tax cuts to people who make more than $200,000 a year. As well as, "college for everyone," a plan that pays for students' tuition with the agreement that the student works at least 10 hours/week. Edwards' campaign is quixotic and filled with empty promises in attempt to make everyone happy.

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