In the past, pollsters have given us some ridiculously inane reasons why we choose to vote for or to not vote for a candidate, most of which has very little to do with their actual competence in doing the job. In 2000, I was horrified to see anti-intellectualism used to smear Al Gore over the "man-you-want-to-have-a-beer-with" George W. Bush. I just didn't want to believe that half of the country would prefer someone that embraced his lack of intellectual curiosity as the man that should run the last remaining world superpower (and you can see how well that's worked out for us).

But the problem is that the media likes to further memes and narratives, not look at the candidates objectively. I've been looking closely at the presumptive top Democratic candidates and only one seems to grasp the leadership issue. Make no mistake, this is NOT an endorsement (C&L will make no official endorsement), but simply a look at what John Edwards has done while the press and pundits desperately try to smear him with this weird misogynistic 'feminization' by calling him the 'Breck Girl' or focusing on his haircuts.

Steve Kirsch did an analysis: Which one of these candidates acts like a leader?