Edwards Promises a Positive Vision and to Change the 'Two Americas'

from the NYT
January 7, 2004
THE STUMP SPEECH
Edwards Promises a Positive Vision and to Change the 'Two Americas'
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

BOONE, Iowa, Jan. 6 — Senator John Edwards cannot sit still.

He paces, he wheels, walks up, walks back. He leans in to listeners to make a point, fixing a hard gaze. His hands reach out, curling into fists. His face twists as he talks of President Bush.

"You know, he lives this sheltered life, where he goes to events and they're ticketed," Mr. Edwards said in South Carolina the other day. "Everybody has to be approved first to get in. He needs to talk to people who weren't approved."

He added: "I'm here to tell you he is completely out of touch with what is happening here in real America. Well, let me say this in the simplest possible terms: This is not only where I come from, this is what I care about."

For Mr. Edwards, one of nine Democrats seeking the party's nomination for president, his stump speech is very personal, tinged with anger about the power of the privileged and, lately, leavened with optimism. "You and I can change America," he said at a library gathering here on Monday.

Much of his speech is essentially about class division, a discussion spiced with the personal reflection of someone who grew up in a small mill town in rural North Carolina and became a multimillionaire trial lawyer. Change is needed, Mr. Edwards says in his standard remarks, because of the "two Americas" he sees, one for the wealthy and connected and the other "for everybody else." And now as the Iowa caucuses approach, Mr. Edwards has boiled down his themes into what his campaign calls a "closing argument."

much more: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/07/politics/campaigns/07STUM.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=

He tells the truth in broad terms that everyone recognizes is true. (Which probably means other candidates will be saying this next week.) And he says it (1) first and (2) in terms that the voters we need to reach respond to.

edwards' story is great. his message should resonate with voters. he's personable. smart as a whip. being trained as an attorney, he knows how to make points and build upon them, rather than saying "god told me."

give me a man who grew up humble and made something of himself any day over some snot-nosed, rich kid playboy who thinks he's entitled.

i'm amazed edwards hasn't gotten more attention and done better in the polls.

EXACTLY what is wrong with America (and, what is right with America).

but I can't take Edwards seriously--he is a first-term Senator running for President, and his stance on the issues and debating skills at the debates show him to be a run-of-the-mill candidate. He has declined to run for his Senate seat, potentially costing the Dems a seat in the Senate in the likely event that he doesn't get the nomination.

There are certainly things to like about Edwards, but he should be running to support his party and keep his seat in the Senate, not running for President in a crowded field. He is young enough and has enough charisma to run for President four, eight, twelve years from now.

He is running to support his party. Why wait four, eight, twelve years from now? He has what it takes right now so go for it. America needs John Edwards to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004!

wwww.johnedwards2004.com

If a person with his message and focus doesn't win in 2004, there might not be much of an America left in 2008. The US will be a corporate-run oligopoly so far gone, it might be unrecoverable.

he's 50. clinton was 46 when he won. bush was what, 52? 53? and though edwards is a first-term senator, bush was a first-term governor who'd spent his life wallowing about on his family's name and whatever filthy lucre he could make by pimping it.

dean is relatively new to politics and clark is brand new. so i don't think political experience is an issue there, either.

hey, the people respond to whomever they respond to. dean and clark may have a better chance to beat bush. i just said i'm surprised edwards message doesn't resonate more with americans. because as a public school-educated child of two working parents who's the first in his family ever to go to college, edwards' message sure as hell resonates with me.

It's almost galling that his campaign has not soared, while a certain lying pandering politician is topping the polls. Could voters have a last minute seeing of the light?

Keep on running, Johnnie Reid. You gotta believe.