John Edwards wins the Miss Congeniality award from two editorial boards:

Like all the Democratic candidates, Edwards is strongly critical of Bush, but with him it tends to be a little less personal.... He tends to conduct positive, optimistic campaigns.

--Des Moines Register

SOME PRESIDENTIAL candidates seem to grow shriller or more haggard as the grueling campaign grinds on. North Carolina Sen. John Edwards is the opposite -- a candidate who remains as appealing as ever and who seems to have grown more thoughtful and confident....

...Mr. Edwards has a natural ability to connect with voters and a trial lawyer's facility for translating complicated concepts into plain English without sounding condescending. He's run a relentlessly positive campaign; while his rivals have gone after front-runner Howard Dean, Mr. Edwards's strategy has been to stay above the fray....

--The Washington Post

Well, that's the way our press likes Democrats -- nice, decent, genial, inoffensive, harmless, nonthreatening. A Democrat should help the press with its homework -- right before the press goes on a date with the (GOP) captain of the football team:

As last week proved again, this president has embraced not only "the vision thing" but the idea of a very big presidency: big ideas, big costs, big gambles. More than many presidents, historians say, Mr. Bush seems to understand how to use the powers of the office and to see the political benefits in risk. He may leave the details to others, but when backed into a corner, he doubles his bets....

"The vision thing" is the point, whether it is big tax cuts, big wars, big plans for democracy in the Middle East. Presidents, historians say, need national unifying principles....

--New York Times

Too bad that snarling meanie Howard Dean has to threaten the natural order of things. Why does he have to be angry all the time? Why can't he be nice? Doesn't he realize he's a Democrat?