Mainstream

Normally, there is no point to my linking to a Kos post, since most of you go there before coming here. But this piece raises a good point. By what standard do we call Senator Joe Biden or Barack Obama mainstream candidates for President, while consigning non-mainstream status to Carol Moseley Braun?

Of Biden:

The largest number of votes he's ever won is 165,465 in his 1996 Delaware Senate race (Moseley Braun got 2.6 million votes in her Illinois Senate victory in 1992).

I like Joe Biden. Some of you may not, but I do. But I love Carol Mosely Braun. The electorate may say that neither race nor sex affects their vote -- but if that were really true, she might well be president today.

As for Obama: This Z Magazine piece goes too far, but it still raises some good points. Obama chose Lieberman to be his mentor. He voted for the Patriot Act, he voted for bankruptcy reform, and he voted for business-friendly tort reform. He now supports universal health care, but (until recently) he has opposed a Canadian-style system, which most Americans would prefer. He also refuses to rule out the idea of a nuking Iran.

Are those positions really so "mainstream" in the current context?