And Jason-that was precisely my point: public intellectuals aren’t like they used to be.

So I don’t think that a New Michael Harrington (or Norman Thomas or Eugene Debs) is out there waiting to be crowned Mr. American Socialist. I think we’re just going to have to do without having a Big Name Leader.

(Yes, Barbara Ehrenreich or Cornel West or Noam Chomsky all could have taken up Harrington’s mantle if they had so chosen. They didn’t. It’s worth thinking about why.)

I think it will be interesting to see what the “Obama Generation” gives us in the way of leaders on the left. Will the throngs who volunteered for him stick with him no matter what? Will they become disenchanted and apathetic? Or will some come to realize that certain interest will always block “change” as long as it attempts to point towards the common good rather than a corporatist or selfish society.

There are few others who are in his league–the main names that come to mind are Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader, and Russ Feingold, among others. And none of them, for various reasons, have as much potential as he does.

I liked Edwards as well, but I always had some reservations about him, and we all know how his campaign turned out, sadly….

He was the only one who had the guts to make poverty the keystone of his campaign. Too bad Obama did not take up the cause in the same way.

Personally out of all the Democrats I was most keen on Edwards in the primaries.

In general I don’t think that someone firmly within the “liberal” ideological framework would ever have the understanding of social change to fill the void of a Harrington.

Kucinich has never really impressed me too much, at best he’s an ally, not a leader. Harrington was keen on alliances with people to the right of him, but there was a reason his pragmatic democratic socialism never morphed into social democracy.