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Joe Biden has said on a number of occasions that he’s adopting the Democratic version of what Ronald Reagan called the 11th commandment of politics: he won’t say anything negative about a fellow Democrat during this primary election.

Well, I’m not Joe Biden, I don’t even officially work for the guy, and I can barely have a conversation at a political meeting without some die-hard fan of another candidate looking at me with a furrowed brow and saying, “Why Biden? What’s your thing with Biden?” So I think I’ve got plenty of room to point out just how goofy some of the other folks are.

Take Bill Richardson. We have a big ol’ group of Richardson fanatics in the Atlanta Democratic community, and I hope they had a good time watching the debate on Thursday night. Sure, he’s got a resume almost as impressive as my boy’s, but in Orangeburg on Thursday, he spent at least half of his time on stage with this demented look on his face like he was trying to integrate sin(log(x^2))dx in his head while wondering who dealt the nasty fart and sweating profusely. It just wasn’t the dictionary picture captioned “presidential” to me.

And then there’s John Edwards and his hair. During the “gotcha” phase of the debate, his $400 haircuts came up, and here’s the answer that lots of Edwards fans are satisfied with:

Well, [paying for that with campaign funds] was a mistake, which we’ve remedied. It was simply a mistake. But if the question is, Brian, whether I live a privileged and blessed lifestyle now, the answer to that’s yes. A lot of us do. But it’s not where I come from. And I’ve not forgotten where I come from.

Yeah, but no. Here’s the problem, John: if you’re paying $400 for a haircut, you have forgotten where you came from. You’ve also lost touch with reality. If you aren’t getting the “full package” with an eyebrow wax and a hummer in some Bangkok boutique, there isn’t a damn haircut in the world worth $400. Even the good stylists at Studio Oliver in my neighborhood charge a guy like $50, and Oliver did Barbara Bush’s damn hair for God’s sake; in any event, I don’t feel any less handsome than Pony Boy by spending $15 at the Georgia Tech Great Clips.

How the hell is John Edwards campaigning as the neo-populist candidate spending $400 on his boring parted-to-the-left hairdo? You know, a lot of scientifically-challenged right-wing pundits like to mock Democratic candidates for talking about climate change and greenhouse gases and then flying around the campaign trail in chartered jets; but the reality-based and more pernicious duplicity is talking about good, solid working-class values and then indulging in the kind of narcissistic ultra-capitalist crap like $400 haircuts and 28,000 square-foot houses with recreational buildings attached to them. You especially open yourself up to charges of hypocrisy when you cite “your Lord” as one of your moral heroes; do you remember how He lived His life, John? Does the phrase “camel through the needle’s eye” mean anything to you? How is it that such avarice is representative of the so-called poverty-oriented candidate of the Democratic Party? I’m not suggesting that my values, or party values, demand some kind of Jesus-emulating, ascetic, vow-of-poverty lifestyle by any means; but for crying out loud, my privileged suburban Republican upbringing couldn’t put a dent in the Edwards family lifestyle, and I didn’t want for a single thing my entire life. How am I supposed to be any more inclined to vote for that kind of drunk-with-new-money style candidate than I am for a guy who decided to marry a woman he’d known for 2 weeks after staying up all night with her at Shirley MacLaine’s house? (That’s Dennis Kucinich, for those of you who don’t keep up with political gossip.)

So back off my guy with the chatty mouth, you people who prefer your own variety of goofball. Your candidates aren’t perfect by a longshot.