In essence, RFK was once in many ways part of the establishment, and he shrewdly distanced himself from the establishment as it became out of touch with core American (and human) values, and increasingly unpopular with the electorate.

I think you missed the part where his brother got assasinated.  There are a million possible ways to respond to such a thing. RFK responded in one of the better ways.  Not perfectly, to be sure.  He failed to step forward to challenge Johnson until after McCarthy had taken the first step.

But RFK had had an old school education in the classics.  And for most in his class, that's really just a way of setting themselves apart.  That's pretty much what it was for him, too.  Until his brother was killed.  And then the Greek tragedies and the stoic philosophers he knew so well in a more superficial way became painfully more real to him.

So, from where I sit, the real question regarding Edwards is if something vaguely similar has happened with him--or if it even needed to.  Because, frankly, I don't think he was ever the sort of establishment insider that RFK was.  I think he was a freshman Senator who deferred judgment a bit too much--most notably on the Iraq war.  But I don't see him as having staunchly embraced it.

The difference between him and Kerry wrt the votes in Ohio was most telling in this regard.  Kerry was more worried about how Washington would view him if he kept his word to the voters.  Edwards was reportedly just outraged by this respose.  Basically, I don't think Edwards ever lost his trial lawyer roots.  So I don't see him as needing to change as fundamentally as RFK did.

But I do like the similarities in where they ended up.

Edwards was always a bit more of a progressive than his backers perhaps would have liked him to be. Joel Rogers pointed this out in the nation shortly before the Democratic primary.

While Edwards' handlers were trying to package him as the new Clinton, filling his speeches with buzzwords like "personal responsibility" and being sure to tout that he was in the New Democrat Caucus, the candidate himself kept undermining them with his "Two Americas" rhetoric about class, and by addressing issues like globalization and racial inequity.

Now that Edwards has finally gotten free of the handlers, that side of him is becoming more pronounced. He talks about the "moral imperative" of eliminating poverty. He calls for a living wage, a WPA-style program for the Gulf, a hike in the capital gains tax, fair trade deals, and "work bonds." He's admitted that he was wrong to vote for the war, something that Kerry and Clinton and gang have yet to do.

The question is, what will happen when Edwards starts to surround himself with handlers again? Will he keep going his own way, a way that I think is clearly in the right general direction, or will he allow himself to be packaged as a neoliberal New Democrat again?

The fact that David Bonior looks likely to take over as campaign chairman is a hopeful sign. Bonior was one of the most progressive House Democrats, particularly on Edwards' favorite hot button economic issues. But if Edwards starts signing the same old hands on again, we could all be very disappointed.

Until Clark gets into the race, Edwards might be the best we can hope for from the top-tier primary candidates.  Meaning, he's not an unrepentant hawk like Hillary and Biden, and he's not as much of an empty suit as Obama.

I don't remember the 60's that well, having been a teenager back then, but teenagers back then were much more politically aware than teenagers today, because of the war and the draft.  What I recall about the 68 election is how pissed off everybody was at Johnson over the war.  And Kennedy was able to distance himself from Johnson in a way that Humphrey had difficulty doing.  Kennedy criticized the war in plain and unmistakeable language.  Perhaps it was the plainness and vociferity of it that made him viable as an anti-war candidate.

The REAL anti-war candidate of 1968 was Eugene McCarthy, who laid waste to Johnson in the earliest primaries, thus prompting him to drop out of the race.  (Those with better memories can refresh me if I blow anything here).  The anti-war 20-ish youth vote was heavily pro-McCarthy, and I can recall that they were loyal in a very Dean-iac way to McCarthy, even after RFK jumped into the race; RFK was seen by them as an opportunist.  But RFK still had credibility with the 30 and older crowd, something McCarthy never had, and thus RFK quickly became the shoo-in for the nomination.  Except for the assassination thing, of course.

In summary, I see the keys to RFK's success in that he appealed to the anti-war sentiments of the non-youth vote.  He had both mainstream credibility and he had distanced himself thoroughly from Johnson.

By the way, the distance between him and Johnson was not just over Vietnam.  Everybody knew there was a long-standing and deeply felt personal component to it.  Johnson and RFK despised each other.

The real test of this "conviction" question will be if Edwards continues to run on the poverty issues and steers clear of positioning as an anti-Hillary candidate as a way to pick up supporters.  

I assume there is a lot of fertile ground to be farmed by any credible not-Hillary candidate, but this is the low non-conviction road.

I am optimistic about Edwards generally and on this question too.

Different backgrounds, different jobs, different experiences.

RFK comes from a wealth NE family steeped in politics, DC legal insider, brother of president, Attorney General through Cuba and Berlin.

Edwards rural poor South family, legal outsider trial lawyer, short DC term.

They are both younger guys, telegenic with good hair though and both liberal positions as part of their presidential campaigns.

As someone old enough to remember RFK before his brother was assassinated, there's another difference: RFK was a ruthless SOB as a campaigner and as AG. I could never figure out if the RFK in the later 60s was someone really transformed by JFK's death and the war, or if we was just cleverly playing to a crowd hungering for a return to Camelot.