Top Ten John Edwards Debate-Prep Secrets

10. To appear less like a callow ambulance-chaser and more like a man of action, he's lightened his hair and wearing a white tunic to look more like Mark Hamill in Star Wars

9. He'll also note that we could have spent that $87 billion to "go to Tashya Station" to buy some wicked "power converters"

8. James Carville is making sure he gets at least 8 hours of sleep every night; new rule: no spooky stories after 9pm (they keep him up all night!)

7. He's been studying his briefing book like a madman, because Bob Shrum says that if he wins the debate, Shrum will buy him a pony

6. He plans on naming the pony either "Princess Prettyprance" or "Dumpling"

5 Under absolutely no circumstances will he fall for any of Dick Cheney's wily rhetorical tricks, like the old "Douchebag says 'what'?"

4. Old John Edwards Mood-Enhancer: Diet Coke
New John Edwards Mood-Enhancer: Institutional-strength Ritalin

3. In order to boost his "gravitas," he's radically cut down on the number of mentions he makes of Trading Spaces and Extreme Make-Over: Home Edition; he's learned to avoid saying things like "I think matching pillows could really bring Fallujah together" or "What Baghdad really needs now is a 'pop' of color in Sadr City"

2. IN: American flag pin on lapel
OUT: Ocean Pacific t-shirt showing a man surfing on a dolphin

... and the Number One John Edwards Debate-Prep Secret...

1. Has memorized an extensive list of economic talking-points by making up a mnemonic song to the tune of Clay Aiken's If I Was Invisible

Update:

"Do I seem soft to you?" -- John Edwards, in an interview with Judy Woodruff

I don't know quite how to answer that, John.