After a summer of fire-breathing rhetoric, John Edwards seems to be reverting to the cheerful character that Iowans loved in 2004, making it ever-harder to identify, immediately and mechanically, what he stands for. This is clearly not the case for most of his competitors from both parties. We just know that Mike Huckabee is Christian, Rudy Giuliani is Security, Hillary Clinton is Experience and Barack Obama is Change, because we've been told this so often and in so many different ways.
Being closely associated with a key word or a concept can work beautifully, as for Mike Huckabee who has taken over the Christian conservative wing of his party (it helps that he paints his main rival, Mitt Romney, as being a devil-worshipper). In other cases, it backfires, with Rudy Giuliani's supporters discovering that their law-and-order candidate's history is anything but lawful and orderly.
The challenge with Edwards is deeper than one of superficial marketing (although it's hard to see how an endorsement by Kevin Bacon and the depressingly uncreative "Main Street Express" can compete with Oprah Winfrey and the world's largest phone bank.) In many ways, this is unfortunate because there is a need in the Democratic primary for a clear, strong voice on poverty, trade, economic insecurity, employment and income disparity. Bringing these issues to the forefront was an uphill battle from the start when a strong majority of the US population does not like to think in terms of class and, when it does, considers itself middle or upper-middle class, or just a couple of years away from being there, rather than a couple of years away from being jobless or homeless. Among those who do care, Edwards has simply not been able to convince them that he is the one who can solve these problems, failing to be credible in the role of working-class hero he has most recently assigned to himself.
It is hard to be a champion of outsiders and a slayer of the powerful when you are a powerful, wealthy, white man, although Ted Kennedy, for one, has done so remarkably well. And of course, Democratic primary voters don't shy away from highly privileged white male candidates such as John Kerry or Al Gore.
More relevantly, Edwards has been inconsistent, both in his positions and in his behavior. In 2004, he ran as a sunny, ambitious, optimistic son of the South. For much of 2007, he has turned into a harsh and uncompromising class warrior. Both are acceptable campaigning temperaments, but one shouldn't be surprised by voters' discomfort with this radical change in a heretofore pleasantly familiar politician.
On Edwards' actual positions, the metamorphosis has also been remarkable, and damaging. His tenure in public office, as short as it was, produced a record of votes and stances, a number of which he has renounced. Nearly all politicians evolve, for whatever reason, and voters can often understand, forgive and forget such conversions. But in the case of Edwards, how many "mistakes," as he has openly called a number of his previous decisions, can he expect us to move beyond? We can appreciate the honesty (or the opportunism) that leads to this confession of errors, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't hold their author accountable for them, especially when their impact has created so much misery.
It is a great leap of faith to ask voters to ignore a candidate's actual record in favor of fuzzy, or even precise promises on free trade, health care, poverty, civil rights, etc. It is far easier for Obama, whose record at the federal level is even thinner than Edwards', and who has generally not changed his positions, to play the vague card. In many ways, it is also easier for Clinton, since she has methodically played both sides of most issues.
Edwards' biggest mistake is, of course, on Iraq. The consequences of his vote in favor of war continue to wreak havoc, not only on US forces and Iraqis, but in the hundreds of billions that have been misspent, and could certainly have helped to alleviate some of the very ills Edwards now decries, had he not written George W. Bush a blank check.
His vote for the war resolution, for reasons that even a trial lawyer of his caliber can't coherently explain, will remain the darkest stain on his record (as it will for Clinton, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, among others). But on other issues too, Edwards' transformation has been unsettling, especially in light of the strong vocabulary he uses to repudiate those who disagree with his current views.
Edwards is quick to denounce the evils of free trade and of NAFTA in particular (on which he didn't get to vote), perhaps forgetting, or hoping that voters will forget, his more flexible attitude towards trade with China, a far bigger threat to US jobs, or towards giving Bush "fast-track" authority.
Edwards says he feels "strongly" about the Patriot Act and its impact on the Bill of Rights. Why did he not feel this strongly when he voted in favor of it? It's hard not to see fear in that decision, fear that a vote against it would make him look weak on security, either to his North Carolina constituency or, worse, to a national audience. Of course, he was hardly alone in this vote, as only Russ Feingold voted "nay."
Whatever prompted this caution earlier in the decade, and whatever prompts Edwards' newfound boldness, is probably irrelevant. But it should certainly be no mystery why national voters, who have known him for just about four years, are wary. And why he better hope that his Iowa fans are able to stretch their imagination far enough to take him at his current word.
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Funny that the most vicious attacks on Edwards come from Obama supporters. It's almost like they have something to be afraid of. Deep down, the phoniness they see in Edwards's more progressive rhetoric might just be hitting a little too close to home.
Just for the record, out of the 100 Senators, only 1 Republican, 1 Independent, and 21 of the 50 Democrats voted against the authorization to use force against Iraq in October of 2002.
You have to be aware of what the atmosphere was like then. 9-11 had happened just over a year before and we"d had a year of drum beating for the upcoming war. Those who, like me were warning against the war were receiving death threats and being accused of treason or at the very least of being unpatriotic. With the American public whipped up as it was, It took courage to vote against this authorization.
I"m looking for a new administration to turn America around. As things stand now my country is on the path to perdition. I almost don"t care which Democrat wins the nomination, I"m going to vote for her/him!
Currently Chris Dodd is providing courageous leadership in the senate. The majority leader, Harry Reid, is not honoring his hold on the administration"s version of the FISA act and he has broken off his campaigning to make good his promise to filibuster that onerous legislation. However we can, we should provide him our support in that effort. I"m writing my senators, are you?
The only mistake Edwards is making now, and let's face it, now is what matters, is he is not articulating to Americans the details of how the greed at the top has affected all of us. We're dumbfoundingly quick to forget how so many of us are out of a job, losing our homes, having trouble finding meaningful new jobs, and how painful it is to see our elders lose everything they've worked for because of corporate greed. It has to be articulated that the very filthy rich people who are scooping all the earnings off the top of the food chain are literally decapitating the American workers as they take all the cream off the top. There is nothing regenerating or enriching at the bottom of the cup, once all the profits are scooped out. There is nothing to restore the infrastructure, nothing to encourage new business or research in new science or engineering, nothing to replenish the workers' families, nothing left to help them to keep America stable. It is the American worker who stabilizes this country. Without them in good health, there won't be an economy left to work from. Eventually the rich will have to move all their stocks to the international arena, and eventually all the richest 2% will be bulging with a glut of thievery, not able to hold up their own weight in gold. You see those filthy rich CEOs and Board of Directors actually do need the worker bees. They just don't know it yet. This is what Edwards is going to have to articulate if he wants to seal the deal with the voters. He's got my vote, but I'm not so quick to forget what the rich have done to me and my family. Others just haven't been stung hard enough yet.
It saddens me when Democrats -- and presumably you are one, Mr. Jenkins, despite your background in private banking, Disney marketing and New York auction sales -- join the mainstream media in picking John Edwards apart.
Despite their best efforts, he remains by far the most electable Democrat. Yes, he cast some votes wrong as a freshman Senator. Since then, like the rest of us, he's learned from the extended negative example of Shrub and His Thugs that the corporatists' greed, duplicity and arrogance have no limits. The notion of "cooperating" with them can now be seen as a self-defeating fancy (as witness what's going on in Congress today).
These people will keep trampling and robbing the less privileged for as long as we'll let them -- and, having built his entire pre-political career on making them pay for their abuses, Edwards isn't a bit afraid of them. This is why he's the candidate who scares them so much that their mainstream media minions are devoted to destroying him.
Anyone who attacks Edwards and isn't a plutocrat is shooting himself in the foot.
John Edwards, according to those who have known him since childhood, is the real deal.
To those who distrust him because he's not living in poverty, I echo musetta in saying you don't have to be poor to help the poor. And Edwards doesn't hide the fact that he has been blessed with wealth. He also knows what it is to be poor; he grew up poor and earned (didn't inherit) his wealth. He is wealthy in so many ways besides monetarily, however. He's rich in purpose, intelligence, sensitivity, experience, determination, and courage.
He has what it takes to turn this country around and inspire us to be better and do better. He's the worst nightmare of Republicans and the best hope we have for getting a good Democrat in the White House. Iowans understand this; they're paying attention. Thank you, Iowans and Go John Edwards!
The folly and tragedy of the Bush presidency have clearly given Edwards the desire to turn our country around. Seeing our great country raped by Corporate America has clearly made Edwards angry -- as we all should be -- and led him to learn all he can about how to change it. He has had the courage to speak truth to the criminals in the administration, the corrupt Republican sycophants in the House and Senate, and he has given us strong, clear, well-thought-out solutions to the critical problems we are facing. For those of us who genuinely care about the future of our troubled land, we know that we need such a leader. John Edwards is the one and only Democrat who can win in the General Election, and who has the vision and the will to use the power of the Presidency, so debauched by George Bush and Company, to stop our downward spiral, lift us up, and give the American people the country the founding fathers envisioned. God Speed, John Edwards. For all our sakes.
...a point of clarification, if I may...a vote for the Iraq Resolution authorizing the use of US military force in Iraq UNDER CERTAIN AND CLEARLY OUTLINED CONDITIONS (which, I may add, were NOT met by President Bush) WAS NOT A VOTE FOR WAR!!!, by any stretch of the imagination.
And, if Obama had been in the Senate at the time and has such great foreign policy judgement, then he would probably have voted for the resolution, too...and stood as part of a strong and united effort to force the UN to keep sanctions on Iraq and to make sure the weapons inspectors were allowed to finish their work, and to ultimately AVOID war. He said as much, at one point in time, until it became more politically expedient to disingenuously portray a vote for this resolution as a "vote for war" to compensate for his own lack of foreign policy prowess - judgement and experience.
I don't think you can nail Edwards on Iraq given that all the candidates in a position to vote on it, did just what he did (except Kucinich). We'll never KNOW what Obama would have done, since he wasn't there. What we DO know is that both Obama and Clinton have continued to fund it and Clinton is still FOR it.
At least with bringing China into the WTO, there is the option of holding them to some standards, if we only had anyone with the balls to do so. Now tell me about Obama's support for the Peru deal. At least at the beginning when CLINTON began the whole NAFTA thing, some folks thought it was a darn good idea. It didn't turn out that way and we all know it, so what is Obama's excuse now?
The Patriot Act was also considered a good idea when it was written...and parts of it are still a good idea...if anyone in government could get their heads screwed on straight. You can sit in judgement now, but at the time it was written YOU probably were all for it. I can count on my left hand the number of people who were against it from the outset.
I get all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about what I would do if I were successful enough in my line of work to have millions of dollars to spend any way I wanted. Top on my list would be to pay off all my debts and my kids' college loans. Not too far down that list is a REALLY nice house. So I don't get the digs about his house. In effect, what you are saying is one of three things: only the poor can care about the poor; OR only the rich who do not live like they are rich can care about the poor; OR only the rich who don't talk about the poor can be real. All, of course, are false.
It's not inconsistent--he spent his career as a lawyer fighting corps who made unsafe products--he fights toward a positive end---always.
He fights because he wants things to get better and to be better--that's inherently optimistic and progressive. And he cares about more than just his own family, friends or economic class--which is vitally important.
I,m just a por ole retired guy in the middle of Missouri, I don't know much more than what I see on the internet, but I do know this Edwards is the only one on either side that has not sold his soul to the corporate interests. In fact he has made it his lives work to fight them, and he has been very good at it. That is why the corporate MSM tries to ignore him. They hope he will go away.
Also He is the only one that will be able to win in states that GWB won in 2004.
From here in MO I can guarantee one thing, neither Hillary or Obamma will win this state in 2008, Edwards probably will.
I admire John Edwards... a lot.
I think his populism is sincere, if sometimes too affected.
And I completely sympathize with his Iraq war resolution vote.
I remember the mood then, and I fear that I might have voted it for it myself.
Which makes Obama's prescience all the more remarkable, frankly.
But Edwards has a problem with "Content, Context and Contact."
His problem is the angle of his head.
He is what I call a "uplooker."
Did you ever notice that, when he is at his most passionate (which is too often, but that's another story), his head tilts up?
It is the physical equivalent of the Southern (and Southern Californian) way of ending a declarative statement with a question mark, which is often referred to as "uptalk" (like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCNIBV87wV4).
The problem with this in an aggressively populist Presidential candidate like Edwards is that he creates cognitive dissonance ("What's wrong with this picture?") in many listeners' minds, because the passion and apparent conviction communicated by his role as Presidential candidate (Context) and his passionate populist message (Content) conflicts with the apparent lack of conviction communicated by his head tilting (Contact).
This is exacerbated by the fact that these conflicting signals mutually escalate... the more passionate he becomes, the more his head tilts up.
This would be bad enough if his political positions had been more consistent.
The combination of the head tilt and his inconsistent history inhibits and erodes authenticity, which in a political campaign is the root of trust.
The combination of behavioral inconsistency and historical inconsistency is in my opinion the major reason that he is not much higher in the polls.
If he wants to rise in the polls... he needs to lower his head...
And align his Content, Context and Contact.
Here's an interesting strain of logic, not meant to demean Edwards. He is my pick amongst the top 3, hands down. Regardless...
Edwards is Kucinich-lite.
Kucinich is Gravel-lite.
Gravel is the Alpha Democrat. LISTEN to him!
Edwards has had an epiphany of sorts. His positions have evolved. The war and the reasons for it are becoming more transparent as fabrications. Free trade has failed to deliver for the rank-and-file worker as real wages, as adjusted for inflation have risen only one cent in the past four years.
Teddy Roosevelt also became a progressive and took on the Robber Barons.
Consistent positions in a changing world with many hard-sells beginning to unravel. Global warming is one more example.
The GWOT is a bumper sticker. The man has my vote. Free trade a bust, loses manufacturing jobs - the man has my vote.
RFK changed his tune before his presidential rum MLK was originally not against the war in Vietnam.
Give the man a chance. The others still cling to their positions. They are doggedly wrong and will never admit it.
Earlier this week it was reported that Edwards had a huge lead over the other candidates when matched against the leading Republicans.
Why has this been ignored by the MSM?
'It"s generally acknowledged that these are the top three Democratic candidates' may be the most damaging thing any of us can say; after all, WHO generally acknowledges? Think about it, please.
Its the media, and its possible for us to imagine numerous reasons for such behavior. Instead of making such an attempt, WE the PEOPLE should spend our time studying the others, the ones about whom the media tells us little.
I'd start with Joe Biden; then Chris Dodd, and on from there.
PLEASE
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Posted December 13, 2007 | 07:03 PM (EST)