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# Posted 11:18 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

HOW MANY AMERICAS ARE THERE? In his speech tonight, John Edwards continued to remind us that there are two. In contrast, numerous Democrats -- most notably Barack Obama -- have been insisting that there is just one America, but that Republicans are trying to manufacture an artificial perception of division in order to hurt John Kerry and help George Bush.

So which is it? One might argue that George Bush's tax cuts and other policy programs have added substance to our false perception of a national division. Yet when John Edwards talks about the two Americas, he focuses on the crisis-state of our health care and education systems, both of which predate George Bush.

In addition to this economic division, there is a division based on values. Edwards tried to deny its existence by saying that

We hear a lot of talk about values. Where I come from, you don't judge somebody's values based upon how they use that word in a political ad. You judge their values based upon what they've spent their life doing.
So when a man volunteers to serve his country, the man volunteers and puts his life on the line for others, that's a man who represents real American values.

That's just a dodge. Like it or not, when Americans talk about "values", they are talking about where a politician stands on controversial issues such as abortion, gay marriage, the death penalty, gun control and religion in our schools.

Edwards had nothing to say about any of those subjects tonight. And if he did, I doubt he would've been able to offer a message of unity. Regardless of whether the Democrats are talking about two Americas or one, what they want is to define the issues of the day as purely economic, a field in which the polls show them beating out the Republicans.

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