I'm starting to feel a bit sorry for John Edwards. For years, he has been trying to position himself as this century's Robert Kennedy (the Good Bobby of the 1968 campaign, not the Nasty and Complicated Bobby of the earlier years). And he's made many of the right moves. He has seriously taken on the issue of poverty in America. He has worked with low-income advocacy groups in New Orleans and elsewhere. He has joined the causes of different unions across the nation. He has strove to be bold in his policy prescriptions, calling for a comprehensive national health care program and an immediate and significant withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. He has sharply decried the institutional corruption of Washington. Sure, there were a few overhyped missteps (receiving an expensive haircut, building an expensive house). But the man has tried. Yet....

Edwards may surprise in Iowa, an obvious must-win state for him. (It's also must-win for Obama, unless Edwards triumphs and Obama places second.) Of the top three candidates, Edwards had the best performance in Wednesday night's debate. He attacked Hillary Clinton with more force and panache than Obama, whose jabs at the front-runner too often seemed tentative and halfhearted. But watching Edwards' new ad--his first national television ad--I cannot help thinking, the guy is trying too hard.

As images of working-class Americans flash across the screen and a Coldplay-like piano riff cascades, Edwards says,

If you're looking for heroes, don't look to me, don't look to Elizabeth. We have support, we have health care. We have the American people behind us. Look to them. They are the ones that we speak for, they are the ones that we stand up for.....We're not going to quietly go away. Instead, we're going to go out and fight for what it is we believe in. It is time for our party--the Democratic Party--to show a little backbone, to have a little guts, to stand up for working men and women. If we are not their voice, they will never have a voice.

An audience applauds and cheers loudly.

So, if I follow this, Edwards is saying he's not a hero, he's a voice. But if you want a hero, go find a working American--though, presumably, that hero will have no voice. Which is why Edwards has to be president. It's all somewhat vague. I appreciate workers as much as the next guy, I believe in populist politics, and I want politicians to champion the interests of working Americans. But are all workers heroes? (I can think of one auto mechanic who is definitely not a hero.) After all, if everyone--except, say, a hedge-fund manager--is a hero, then nobody is. The rhetoric of this spot, which is being aired in Iowa, is too hyperbolic to have serious meaning.

Edwards and his team of strategists and media advisers failed to nail it. I hope he has saved money for another try and another ad buy.

ABIZAID FOR PRESIDENT? Yesterday, my fellow CQ blogger Richard Whalen suggested that "Republican Party operatives" should talk up retired General John Abizaid as a potential presidential candidate:

The younger, energetic Abizaid could possibly measure up to Eisenhower's unique stature. He resigned before the current tactical "surge" in U.S. troop strength in Iraq because he knew it would not win any lasting, decisive political results. The recent optimistic-sounding reporting in the Washington Post and elsewhere is mainly based on the shift of Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar Province after being well-bribed, according to plans laid by Abizaid's subordinates two years ago....

John Abizaid is one of America's best and brightest retired soldier-scholars. He would make an excellent presidential candidate for the leaderless Republicans and could lead our country honorably and safely out of the quagmire of Iraq. Abizaid may offer the Republicans their only chance of holding on to the White House.

Intriguing idea, but it can't happen here. It's too late for anyone to enter the presidential contest. (Ask Al Gore.) And Abizaid has hardly acted like a fellow looking to be a presidential candidate or a Republican nominee.

A few weeks ago, he said that the world could live with a nuclear-armed Iran. "Iran is not a suicide nation," he explained. "I mean, they may have some people in charge that don't appear to be rational, but I doubt that the Iranians intend to attack us with a nuclear weapon." That sort of talk--as reasonable as it is--doesn't play well in GOP circles. Saying that on the campaign trail would get him creamed.

Then this past Wednesday, Abizaid noted that U.S. troops might have to stay in the Middle East for half a century. "Over time," he said, "we will have to shift the burden of the military fight from our forces directly to regional forces, and we will have to play an indirect role, but we shouldn't assume for even a minute that in the next 25 to 50 years the American military might be able to come home, relax and take it easy, because the strategic situation in the region doesn't seem to show that as being possible." And this kind of talk wouldn't play well with the general election voters, many of whom want the United States out of Iraq sooner than later. (Regarding these latest Abizaid comments, Charles Smith, a professor of Middle East history at the University of Arizona at Tucson, tells me, "The question is: what branch of military and/or civilian thinking does [Abizaid] represent? This sounds like we are back with the [neoconservative] Project for the New American Century and its ideas on an ongoing US military domination via a strong presence in selected areas of the world. If so, we would seem to be moving backward on this issue, not forward.")

I suppose pining for another Eisenhower is the Republican equivalent of Democrats pining for the next RFK. But Abizaid is not in sync with the GOP and ill-prepared to do serious political battle. The Republicans will have to get on without him.

THE DEMOCRATS' MUKASEY MOMENT. Should the Senate Democrats mount a serious fight to stop Michael Mukasey from becoming George W. Bush's next attorney general? I explain here why that could be good policy and good politics.