Safire Disses 'Kennedy Democrats'

What delicious diversity: North and South, with Kerry's fatal Massachusettsism ameliorated by Edwards's Carolina charm; the experience of craggy Kerry enlivened by the passionate optimism of the boyish Edwards.

But the political philosophy these two men have embraced is lopsidedly leftist: In this campaign, they have clawed their way up the greasy pole of politics with a pitch that is pure populism. Both men have risen high in Democratic polls with a brand of class resentment and soak-the-rich rhetoric rooted in the old-fashioned liberalism of Ted Kennedy.

el - old Republican savant at work.