The Jon Tester's of the world have the backbone to believe in their progressive and populist values.

Matt Stoller from MyDD.com has a few thoughts too:

In a bar fight, Obama and Hillary are not on our side. Jerome doesn't think this matters, he doesn't much care about policy and he tends to see ideology as annoying except when it suits his 'get the single issue groups out of the way' purposes. Those are legitimate strategic differences, and I get where he's coming from. I tend to see ideology as a great organizing principle, as a tool of power rather than a burden. And honestly, this debate may not matter because most of the candidates would seem to agree with Jerome.

There are two candidates who can pass the bar fight primary. One of them, Wes Clark, passes the test clearly. He is a genuine liberal, and has fought the right clearly and consistently for the last four years, most recently in Connecticut when he was the only real surrogate against Lieberman. I don't see how Clark can seriously compete, but this willingness to be on our side in a bar fight, recognizing the institutional challenges posed by the right, explains his continuing netroots support. And then there's John Edwards. I think Edwards is split. He's spent much of his time working with unions, on the road, in low-key meetings. Elizabeth Edwards has done outreach to bloggers, so there's at least acknowledgment of the dirty hippy crew. He's announcing in New Orleans, which is dog whistle politics on our issues. He knows he was wrong on the war, and feels our betrayal. Unlike Clark, though, I still haven't seen him stand up for us in a real way. I haven't seen him attack McCain, for instance, or go after the politicians who supported the Bankruptcy Bill. I haven't seen him challenge any right-wing interests in a serious way, and so while I acknowledge he's in the ball park, he's not there yet.

Read the rest here.

Who is your pick?