John Edwards 2008: What’s not to like

“I have won in a red state – I beat the Jesse Helms political machine to get elected to the United State Senate.”

Edwards, seeking to make the electability argument, has started to use this line much more frequently to explain why he can go toe-to-toe with the GOP in the general. And for the most part he’s been unchallenged in doing so.

But a closer examination of the facts that this argument rests on makes it look less impressive. First off, Edwards was not running against Helms himself, but rather Lauch Faircloth. As anybody who knows a thing about North Carolina politics can tell you, that is an important distinction.

Helms, unapologetically racist long after it became unfashionable, defied the odds cycle after cycle. He knocked off popular Gov. Jim Hunt in 1984 and then twice defeated former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt in 1990 and 1996.

Indeed, Helms’ ability to always seize victory from the jaws of defeat led some of his backers to joke that it was only once every six years that he would actually appear on top in the polls.

By contrast, Faircloth was a one-term senator in a seat that is renonnwed among political junkies for its streak of one-term senators (dating back to 1974). A hog farmer and former Democrat who switched parties to run in 1992, Faircloth was widely viewed as a weak candidate when he ran for re-election. And 1998 was a ripe year for Democrats. And Edwards spent millions of his own money. And, while it’s tougher for Dems in federal races than it is state contests, North Carolina is not exactly Mississippi or Alabama politically.

What’s more, it was the sole victory Edwards has ever enjoyed in electoral politics. As John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, he never ran for re-election. And Edwards didn’t do much to help in his homestate. North Carolina was never really in play in 2004 as Bush won by 12%.

Given his shift left to enter national Democratic politics, Edwards would probably have as difficult a time carrying North Carolina as Al Gore did Tennessee in 2000.

The Politico 10/29/07
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/1007/The_new_John_Edwards_mantra.html

Elizabeth Edwards, in Nashville this week pushing her husband’s presidential campaign, said that the Democratic Party has ignored voters in Tennessee, North Carolina and other Southern states.

It’s a good thing that her husband, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, did devote some of his time in the Senate to serving his state — when he didn’t have pressing obligations with his first presidential run.

Winston-Salem Journal 9/1/07
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_ColumnistArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173352586208&path=%2Fopinion

Clinton amassed nearly $100,000 worth of Wal-Mart stock as a director, much of which she and her husband placed in 1993 into a blind trust that they still maintain.

She is not the only Democratic candidate with Wal-Mart ties. During his Senate term, John Edwards disclosed owning between $1,000 and $100,000 in company stock. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, serves on the board of a Wal-Mart supplier. And Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut accepted $5,000 from Wal-Mart’s PAC in 2004.

LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hillary19may19,0,5168474.story?coll=la-home-center

Edwards, who was selected today as John Kerry’s running mate on the Democratic ticket, raised $33.1 million for his presidential campaign through May 31. He has collected $5.5 million in his Senate campaign account since 1997, a total that does not include $6.15 million in personal funds that helped him to win his 1998 Senate race against incumbent Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R).

Capital Eye, 7/6/04
http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=131

ATLANTA — Senator John Edwards never misses a chance to tell people he is the “son of a mill worker,” recalling the days before many manufacturing jobs in the South were sent overseas.And to draw a sharp distinction between himself and Democratic front-runner John F. Kerry, Edwards often reminds audiences he opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, while Kerry voted to pass it — setting in motion new economic forces that labor leaders believe have cost Americans jobs.But as Kerry is quick to point out, Edwards never had to vote on NAFTA; he was still working as a lawyer then. And during his five years in the Senate, Edwards has been more flexible on trade than his rhetoric suggests: In 2000, he supported solidifying trade relations with China, swayed by technology, furniture, textile and tobacco firms in his home state of North Carolina who sought to sell their products to Chinese consumers. His North Carolina GOP colleague, Republican Senator Jesse Helms, opposed it.Two years later, Edwards initially backed giving President Bush broad “fast-track” powers to negotiate future trade agreements. Only when a provision protecting the textile industry was stripped out did Edwards oppose it.Yesterday, as a war of words over trade practices heated up on the campaign trail, Edwards described trade as a “moral issue” during a speech in New York.

Noting that US firms have sought intellectual property rights abroad, Edwards said: “We’re asking that human rights be taken just as seriously.”

The Kerry campaign fired back almost immediately. In an e-mail labeling Edwards “Mr. Johnny Come Lately on Trade,” the Kerry campaign pointed out that Edwards did not highlight trade in a major economic speech last year. A separate Kerry memo accused Edwards of changing his mind four times on fast-track, noting that Edwards “voted FOR the China trade deal, even while acknowledging that he thought jobs would be lost.”

snipKerry and Edwards have nearly identical positions on future trade deals: They would insist that enforceable human rights, labor, and environmental standards be written into the body of any agreement. However, their records do differ. Edwards has recently voted against trade deals with Chile, Singapore, the Caribbean, and Africa, while Kerry supported them all.

Speaking in New York City yesterday morning, Edwards set forth his guiding principles on trade, saying every future agreement would have to create US jobs, contain human rights and environmental protections, and contain mechanisms to punish nations flouting those rules.

But on the major trade accords of the recent past, Edwards’s record is hardly that of an antitrade firebrand, as the China and fast-track examples illustrate. In those two cases, local trade concerns — driven by the powerful North Carolina textile industry — shaped his ultimate positions.

Edwards never publicly commented on NAFTA when it was pending before Congress. In 1998, as Edwards ran for the Senate, he said he had “serious reservations” about NAFTA when asked by reporters, but rarely spoke out against it unprompted. With the North Carolina economy humming along back then, NAFTA and trade were not big political issues.

snip

Last summer, Gephardt, the Missouri Democratic congressman who recently dropped out of the race, criticized Edwards for supporting the China trade deal. At the time, a mass closing of 16 textile plants had enraged many in North Carolina.

But in 1999, just before the China trade deal, North Carolina businesses sold $245.2 million in products to China, the state’s 16th-largest foreign customer.

In addition, Edwards said at the time that exposure to trade would help democratize China.

Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/edwards/articles/2004/02/20/trade_issue_close_to_home_for_edwards/

For his career as a federal candidate, Edwards has raised far more money from lawyers and law firms than from any other industry. The $11.6 million he has collected from the legal profession – a total heavily boosted by money from trial lawyers – is more than 10 times the amount raised from his No. 2 industry, comprised of individuals classifying themselves as retired, and more than 20 times what he has raised from his No. 3 industry, securities and investment firms.

Edwards’ top contributor since he entered federal politics is the Los Angeles firm of Girardi & Keese, whose employees have donated a total of nearly $158,000 to his presidential and Senate campaign accounts. Second on his top contributor list is Goldman Sachs, the investment giant, with $136,000 in individual contributions.

Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, a law firm based in Montgomery, Ala., is third in total contributions to Edwards with slightly more than $117,000 in individual donations. Fourth is the Dallas-based firm of Baron & Budd, with just under $117,000 from employees. Fred Baron, the firm’s principal, was chief fundraiser for the Edwards presidential campaign and began raising money for John Kerry after Edwards dropped out of the race.

Sixteen of Edwards’ top 20 contributors are law firms.

Edwards also has proved successful at raising money for his leadership political action committee, New American Optimists. Established in August 2001, New American Optimists raised more than $6 million in individual, PAC and soft money contributions during the 2002 election cycle. The legal profession accounted for $4.1 million of the total.

The biggest contributor to New American Optimists, however, is not a lawyer. It is Steve Bing, a major Democratic donor who runs the movie studio Shangri-La Entertainment. Bing gave $905,000 – all but $5,000 of it in soft money – to New American Optimists in the 2002 cycle.

Capital Eye, 1/6/04
http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=131