|
|
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
|
|
"DOES THIS MAN FRIGHTEN YOU?" NOTES ON THE RESSURECTION OF JOHN EDWARDS
Senator John Edwards (D-NC) certainly frightens John Kerry. Despite every poll on the planet having Kerry ahead in Wisconsin by between 20 and 30 points as recently as Friday, Edwards came within 4 points of a major upset. As I've noted before, Team Bush is fucking terrified, irrationally, pants-wetting a-scared of running against Edwards. Edwards reminds the White House of Bill Clinton. The Bush family has.....issues with Bill Clinton.
Now I look at Edwards and always assume that the first thing out of his mouth is going to be, "Golly, Mrs. Cleaver, you look lovely today." He looks approximately 14 years old. That perception was so prevelent that Edwards actually had to run a TV ad in Iowa that stated, basically that, "Yes, I am old enough to be President."
The big reason that John Edwards starting running for president in the first place was that he was up for re-election in North Carolina this year and his numbers were horrible. Conventional wisdom dictates that if you don't have a re-elect number of at least 40% a year before the election, you're DOOMED! Edwards was polling at 36%. His options were either run for president and make a name for yourself, or go back to chasing ambulances for a living.
Oh yeah, John Edwards is a trial lawyer. Everyone knows how popular they are. Pedophiles look down at trial lawyers.
But Senator Edwards inspires old-fashioned, stare-at-the-ceiling-all-night terror among serious people in politics. Now, I've said some ugly things about John Kerry and I'm proud of all of them, but he is a serious politician who has scored at least one very impressive victory (beating the walk on water popular Governor of Massachussettes, William Weld in his '96 Senate race.) George Bush, for all of his violence towards the English language and "interesting" views on economnics, is a very good campaigner and an above average debater. Most of my readers will argue that view, but I assure you that Ann Richards and Al Gore won't.
So how is Edwards so scary?
First, he's a charasmatic Southerner. People who know the history of campaigns keep asking themselves one question, "How many Democrats have won the presidency without winning a minimum of 5 southern states?" The answer is....none. Not a one. People will want to point out that Kerry won the Virginia primary, but I'll point out that he won the Virginia Democratic primary. I'm not saying that Edwards would be likely to beat Bush in the south, but I am saying that he'd be competetive there. This could make the Republicans spend time and money there that would be better spent in states they HAVE to win, like Ohio and Florida.
Edwards is also surprisingly good on the stump, too. His "Two America's" speech is hackneyed garbage, and he doesn't really have a plausable platform, but the delivery is outstanding. He generally outcharms everyone he's on the stage with. And Americans lect presidents they like personally.
Senator Edwards only entered politics in 1998. He never held office before then. And if freshman senators are famous for anything, it's for not doing very much. While one can argue that Edwards has no record to run on, I would argue that he has no record to run against. Kerry flips positions on important issues like fucking pancakes and he has the voting record and thirty years of public statements to prove it. Edwards doesn't. Therefore, he can say anything and get away with it. This is daunting in an opponent.
Now that Senator Kerry is officially girlfriend-free, there's no real threat of his losing the nomination to Edwards, but he almost certainly will lose the election to Bush. This puts Edwards in play for '08. And he'll be able to raise a boatload of money until then. Watch for Edwards to run again then. His prospects for '08 will be even better if Kerry puts him on the ticket, which I don't think he will (My money's on Bob Graham of Florida.)
So Edwards will run for the nomination in 2008. And he'll lose to Hillary Clinton.
And she'll lose to Rudolph Gulianni.
|
|
|
| |
