Up Close and Personal With Edwards

"These people have a stranglehold on your democracy!" John Edwards exhorts a crowd of true believers packed into East High School in Des Moines on Saturday night. Who is Edwards excoriating? The drug companies, the insurance companies, the lobbyists and American CEOs. Edwards singles out Exxon Mobil and the presumably perfidious head of an unnamed health insurance company for greed. He's like a small-town early twentieth-century preacher decrying the Seven Deadly Sins. "We have an epic fight on our hands," Edwards says -- not once but twice. "Corporate greed is killing the middle class," he goes on, and his audience boos and hisses when he mentions, in passing, NAFTA and CAFTA. A young man waves a homemade sign lettered SMART TRADE FAIR TRADE. "I have not taken a dime from a special interest lobbyist or special interest group." No mention, of course, of the trial lawyers who have bankrolled his Iowa campaign. "There will be no lobbyists in my White House!" The room gives him back a fusillade of cheers.

This is a leaner, more focussed John Edwards than the man I saw on the stump in San Francisco several months ago. I had been curious to see what Iowa has done to him. The anger, palpable and occasionally inchoate earlier in campaign season, has been transmuted, as if in refiner's fire, into message. Succinctly now he says what he's about. No more scattershot ideas about free tuition here and democracy schooling abroad. "This is the great moral task of our generation," Edwards declares. And what he means, as he tells his own family's story several times in several ways to illustrate, is the task of leaving our children and grandchildren a better life than our own.

If John Edwards uses the word "mill" once in Des Moines, he uses it a dozen times, as he recounts the now familiar stories of his father's and grandparents' sacrifices. He talks about returning recently with his parents to the house he "was brought home to." He remembers "waiting to have breakfast with my grandparents" when they returned from work. Twice he talks about the grandmother with "a fifth or sixth grade education, who came from a family of sharecroppers" -- the grandmother who helped raise him, who cooked for the family, when she wasn't working in the mill herself. It's hard to gauge the response of the Des Moines crowd. The personal testimony doesn't seem to resonate as much as the excoriation of free trade and big business. Maybe it's because they've heard it all before. Maybe it's because the mean poverty of a southern sharecropper family is far away in space and time. The Des Moiners are a nice bunch, bundled in anoraks and plaids and bright puffy jackets -- all white folk, of course, but also all ages. It's a family occasion, with children crowded into the window embrasures, and mothers walking babies. I notice how well-behaved all the children are, even the older ones. Bringing good behavior and manners back to New York and California children would be, in my opinion, a "moral task for our generation" that John Edwards could add to his list.

It's a manipulative speech, crafted well enough so that I have to remind myself of that. With John Edwards, there's always that moment when even the most cynical press pulls himself or herself up short before falling under the Edwards spell. But then he brings up Cleft Palate Guy, "humble, gracious and grateful, like my grandparents," and Elizabeth's breast cancer, and the little girl denied a liver transplant by her insurance company. "I will never sit at a table and negotiate with these people. Never!"

Most interesting about the evening is the yeasty anticipation of winning. Like a contender for a Shakespearean kingdom, John Edwards can feel it, can taste it. It's his -- almost. There are several jokes about "Mr. President." His wife Elizabeth radiates a gracious empathy, but her face is etched with exhaustion. The children Jack and Emma Claire appear gentled but stunned -- too many big rooms with too many strangers in too many days. But John Edwards himself is buoyant, shaking hands with enthusiasm but dispatch before disappearing into the night.

Comments

[frank67]

John Edwards is by far the best of the "top 3."
Dennis Kucinich is the best of the Democrats but he has very little support or money. I like Bill Richardson, but again, not much support or money.
A John Edwards/Bill Richardson ticket might be "just the ticket!"
GO JOHN!

[unchainthedogs]

I believe Edward's is a warrior. I'm voting for the warrior. I like his policies, especially about immigration and calling the big corps on their tactics of pick pocketing the American people. I think he'll make a terrific President and will work hard at bringing back the middle class of this country. Run John Run.

[moorfam]

I have been hoping that others have seen what a remarkable candidate that John Edwards is. I am tired of listening to the nay-sayers. You can find fault with anyone, if you are looking for faults. But I'm looking for someone who has a dream for this country. Who can motivate me to care again. Lets face it we have been beaten down by the "boy who would be king" and his vampire side-kick, Count Cheney. Truthfully the first person who says that they will go after Bush and Cheney no matter how long it takes for crimes against our Nation and treason, I will vote for immediately. That is the only thing that the Presidential Politicians are not willing to talk about, or do. Other then that, Edwards has my vote.

[huffpostD46]

By the way, saying Elizabeth is "tired" is a bad dig, they're all tired, ALL the candidates and their families, this is the home stretch, who wouldn't be?

[huffpostD46]

Trial lawyers aren't special interests (like the ones Obama and Clinton align with). Trial lawyers represent varied interests of the clients they represent.

[wrabbitt]

The whole political thing has lost its luster. Its no longer who to vote for, but, a who to vote against! Congress can't seem to get its head out of its ass,they can't pass anything that don't involve earmarks. In a time when the economy is holding its breath waiting for the other shoe to drop, congress is spending as much money as they can, because they know leaner times are waiting in the wings, the next election is looming on the horizon and maybe a rude awakening for the American people.

[Hume]

If there is substance in this blog, it is certainly well hidden under a superficial surface of gossamer superficiality.

All of these politicos are question marks and what they are made of will not be known until the fire of service burns away their studied veneer.

At least Edwards is talking battle with the Economic Royalists and what it will take to separate these parasites from body public.

For my money, that's a damn good start!

[deminmo]

No matter how nice looking or well spoken a
politician is, they are politicians first and
formost. Politicians have to promise all the rosy things to get elected. The actual job
requires negotiation. Most things Edwards said
he would accomplish in his first year are
unlikely to happen. But that is true of anyone
who gets elected. No one so far has said if they
will keep and use all the ammenedments and
Executive Privilage Bush had put in place. No
one has said how they will pay off the war debt
Bush has gotten us into, let alone provide
enough troops for any future events.
There are still too many unanswered questions
to pick one candidate.

[nolalily]

Besides, don't ya'll think it's funny that he can't carry either North Carolina (his home state) or South Carolina (his birth state) and that his running mate, John Kerry won't endorse him?

[nolalily]

Edwards is running against his own record. I don't know about you but this doesn't inspire alot of confidence in me to vote for him.

He's angry which is how I feel, too, but I know, from experience, one must harness anger and use it in a way that gets things done. Edwards' record of getting things done isn't very good.

[KenoshaMarge]

John Edward's message is manipulative? Well sweetie if that is the worst you can say other than attempting to portray him as a poor husband because his wife and kids look tired you have failed. ALL politicians and ALL their messages are manipulative. Surprised you maybe, but not anyone that has ever paid any attention. Nice try though.

[Kane]

No city on earth stands as a greater symbol of responsibility than this one. The brave firefighters and police officers who lost their lives because they went back in the World Trade Center to save the lives of others. The mayor who took charge and lifted up this city and our nation. So today, we salute New York City, not just the financial capital of America, but now, more than ever, a city at the very heart of America.

Responsibility of the kind we have seen in New York is at the heart of what the DLC has always stood for; it is written in the record and work of this organization. From national service to community policing to deficit reduction, the ideas you have advanced around the country have been about inspiring a new sense of responsibility in all walks of American life. Millions of Americans are able to lift themselves up, give something back, and hold their heads high because the DLC has given them the chance.

John Edwards - 2002 DLC National Conversation
New York, NY

Don't be fooled by another DLC candidate!

[rickroberts]

He is a con man. He is our Romney.

[Kane]

Hillary has taken a lot of hits for certain votes that she has cast, as she should. But there appears to be a double standard when it comes to John Edwards. Like Hillary, Edwards also voted for the Iraq war, voted for the Patriot Act, voted for the Homeland Security Act, voted for the No Child Left Behind Act, and voted for the (SAFE) Act of 2001 which gave $15 billion in tax breaks to oil companies. Why is Hillary attacked and criticized for her votes, but some are so quick to give Edwards a pass on his votes?

[chimezatmidnight]

There is much to credit John Edwards for.

But there are two factors which keep me from supporting him in his populist phase.

The first is that his debate with Dick Cheney -- Dick Cheney! -- belied so much of what has been written as true faith about his skills as an attorney in both is preparation and his crossing skills. Neither were present -- and his clumsy and unnecessary citing of Cheney's lesbian daughter actually achieved the impossible: Edwards made Cheney sympathetic.

The other is in the details of his work for the Fortress Hedge Fund -- which was far from just "learning" as he served as a lobbyist to the German PM to convince her to improve laws which would benefit US hedge funds -- but his keeping half of his net worth in such a corporate driven and serving investment tool -- one which fights (via Senators like Schumer) to keep itself as free from tax payments as if possible as it reinvests its profits offshore.

It's to be noted that Fortress is a rare hedgefund which has gone public and is, due to that, paying some taxes.

It's also to be noted that Dodd (in particular) has received more hedge fund donations than Edwards or any other candidate.

But Dodd isn't running on the evils embodied in hedge funds.