John Edwards 2008: What’s not to like

But from the Democrats leading the race to become the next commander-in-chief, there has been only gutless evasion.

“Did you think the MoveOn.org advertisement about General Petraeus was . . . appropriate?” interviewer Charlie Rose asked Senator Hillary Clinton in an online “candidate mashup.” Her nonresponse: “I think that we should focus on what the problem is here. The problem is a president who has a policy that flies in the face of reality.”

Senator Barack Obama also ducked.

“I’ll be honest with you,” he dissembled. “I am less interested in the motives or what General Petraeus or Ambassador [to Iraq Ryan] Crocker are responsible for than I am for what the president is responsible for, and that is the mission that has been assigned to those people. I think the mission is the failure.”

Even lamer was John Edwards, who said he knew nothing about the ad. “I’m sorry, I just haven’t seen it. So it’s hard for me to comment on it.”

The only Democratic presidential candidate unafraid to tell off MoveOn was Senator Joseph Biden. Queried on “Meet the Press,” he replied forthrightly: “I don’t buy into that. This is an honorable guy. He’s telling the truth.”

Boston Globe 9/19/07
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/09/19/pandering_on_the_left/

In the campaign’s early days, the media breathlessly covered the campaign’s online know-how and swallowed the hype that Edwards 2008 would be Dean version 2.0 —bigger, smarter, and better at using the Internet to harvest money, volunteers and votes.

Things haven’t quite turned out that way for Edwards. True, he posted decent online fundraising numbers by raising approximately $3.3 million via Internet donations in the first quarter of 2007, out of an overall haul of $14 million. But in the second quarter, Edwards’s figures dropped, as his $9 million total came up $5 million short of what he was able to raise from January through March.

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It’s not for lack of trying to recreate Dean’s magic that Edwards is coming up short in the fundraising department. Edwards has signed up several veteran Dean staffers, including Matthew Gross, who ran the Dean campaign’s blog, and Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi. In a July 1 profile, The New York Times’s Adam Nagourney reported Elizabeth Edwards had advocated hiring Trippi “in large part to address her concern about lackluster fund-raising by the campaign.”

Another of Edwards’s major Internet hires was Ben Brandzel, formerly advocacy director for MoveOn.org, and an organizer for Dean. Brandzel’s arrival was followed by a stir when the campaign’s online team asked anti-war Edwards supporters to stage protests at Memorial Day events.

The idea drew fire from veterans groups and newspaper editorials. Elizabeth Edwards wisely amended this plan by asking supporters not to protest on the Monday holiday, only the weekend before, because “Memorial Day itself is not supposed to be a day of protest. It’s a day of honor.” Lesson? What works in an advocacy group’s e-mailed action alerts, directed at a narrow group of activists, doesn’t always translate into effective ways to promote a presidential campaign.

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It may be that Team Edwards, despite their Dean campaign experience, aren’t doing anything groundbreaking with their Internet strategy. It’s possible that the self-inflicted wounds Edwards has suffered over supposed issues like haircuts and hedge funds have dented enthusiasm for his candidacy online, just as they’ve dragged down his standing in national polls.
Or it could just be that Edwards is not the freshest face in the race. In 2008, it’s Obama who’s the newcomer, and the
candidate most likely to inspire passionate involvement on the part of folks who have never worked on or donated to political campaigns before, whether online or off.

Ironically, only days after announcing the hire of yet another Dean campaign veteran, Joe Trippi protege Paul Blank, Edwards told reporters they should look to Dean’s implosion as a reason not to count him out of the race. “Remember Governor Dean who out-raised everyone else by more than 2-to-1 and wasn’t able to win the nomination,” Edwards said in an AP interview. In order to avoid Dean’s fate, Edwards had better hope his campaign learns a lot more lessons fast about how to compete in the YouTube era.

The Hill 8/1/07
http://thehill.com/op-eds/john-edwards-needs-a-netroots-reboot-2007-08-01.html

“It’s totally inappropriate,” said Al Singerman of Peekskill, president of Westchester Chapter 49 of the Vietnam Veterans of America. “Memorial Day is not a day that should be politicized. It’s not a day that is for or against war. It’s a day when the sacrifice of all Americans, since the birth of this country, is recognized.”

“All lI can say to these protesters is knock it off,” said 90-year-old Joe Nader of Yonkers, who served with the U.S. Army in Libya and Italy during World War II and later helped train troops for the Korean War. “Do all your protesting after our guys come home.”

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“We’re upset,” said Richard Farrell, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Marine Corps. “It’s a day that is supposed to pay homage to military killed in action.”

Farrell, a member of Mahopac Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5491 who works for the Putnam County Veterans Affairs Office, said it seems Edwards “is doing this for his benefit, not the people.”

“It’s not right,” Farrell said. “He should pick another day to do it.”

Another veteran, Steve Wittenberg of Ardsley, said he was “staggered” to hear about the Edwards call for action.

“How could anybody even think that that’s a day to do anything but remember the people who came before us, and sacrificed their lives to give us everything we’ve got,” Wittenberg said.

Wittenberg, who served with the U.S. Army infantry in Vietnam, is the master of ceremonies at Ardsley’s Memorial Day observance today.

Karl Rohde, a Kent town councilman, chairman of the Putnam Joint Veterans Council and an Army veteran of Vietnam, said politicians are generally not even permitted to speak at Memorial Day ceremonies because “it’s non-partisan to honor our fallen comrades.”

“Anyone has the right to protest,” he said, “but there are appropriate times and inappropriate times. Memorial Day is a day set aside for those who have sacrificed their lives for their nation.”

Demonstrations at Memorial Day events, Rohde said, are the “same as protesting at a (funeral service) for a serviceman.”

The Journal News 5/28/07
http://www.nyjournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070528/NEWS02/705280341