Nevertheless, I'd be shocked if a New Hampshire barn has been raised by anyone other than some chic liberal's favorite contractor as a rustic accoutrement in the last thirty years. The pristine finished rooms of such barns are no doubt at this very moment filled with the wives of doctors, lawyers and professors; wives who have recently decided to dabble in some bourgeoisie artistic endeavor in the hours between Oprah episodes and dinner parties: John Edwards' base, in other words.

The audience applauded this abject barn raising fiction all the same, as if they would ever dirty their hands raising a barn; as if, indeed, they believed Edwards ever would. At any rate, (Still Just A Senator) John Kerry's 2004 sidekick worked diligently to maintain this faux communitarian spirit. "I'm talking about all of us--all of us, you and me--taking individual responsibility for America," Edwards said. The gist of this new Not-The-Two-Americas speech is an appeal to people not to expect that "the next person who gets elected will solve our problems." Hence, the slogan Tomorrow Begins Today. "Don't do it for me," Edwards pleaded. "I'm dead serious. Don't do this for me. Do it for yourselves. Do it for your family. And do it for this country you love so much."