I think Ross Douthat has it exactly right in this post and Matt Miller (and his defenders) has it wrong in this column (reg. req’d). Miller argues that it’s silly to call John Edwards a populist because Edwards’ positions – namely socialized medicine of some kind — are mainstream in Western Europe. This sort of game can be played all day. I could argue that American conservatives aren’t “rightwing” for opposing racial preferences and affirmative action since even French socialists oppose affirmative action. We aren’t rightwing for opposing the abortion laws under Roe since most of Europe is to our “right” on abortion policy. Lots of European countries have flat taxes, does that mean Steve Forbes is a social democrat?

Indeed, I find it odd that Miller even bothered to write the column in the first place. For years now, many leading Democratic analysts and liberal pundits have argued that the Democrats must become more populist in order to win the White House. See, for example, John Judis’ and Ruy Teixeira’s “Why Democrats Must Be Populists: And What Populist-Phobes Don’t Understand About America” from the American Prospect. Miller makes some defensible points in arguing that Edwards’ isn’t as leftwing as some suggest (though, I think the problem with Edwards is ambition, not ideology). But it’s just silly to suggest that Edwards’ campaign isn’t populist in its orientation. His “two Americas” schtick is quintessentially populist rhetoric. His assertion that powerful interests are trying to muzzle him – “they want to shut me up” — also fits perfectly into the paranoid style of American populism. He says : “I’ve been fighting these people my whole life and have beaten them my whole life,” said Edwards, a former trial lawyer. “I think the time to talk to them is after you’ve beaten them.” And: “How long are we going to let insurance companies and drug companies run this country?”

But, sure, there are no populists here.

If Al Gore and Howard Dean ran populist campaigns in 2000 and 2004 – which is how countless liberal and non-partisan commentators described them — how exactly can Edwards be immune to a similar charge?

The answer might be that Miller wants to rescue his preferred public policies by casting them as mainstream as opposed to scary sounding “populism.” That’s fair enough, whether or not you find such efforts persuasive. Everybody is entitled to think their preferred policies are reasonable. But, even so, Miller surely knows that there’s more to populism than public policy. It’s a style of framing the debate. And Edwards, ever the trial lawyer, acts like his target voters are a bunch of poor, angry, jurors eager to stick it to the man.