John Edwards 2008: What’s not to like

TPM Election Central 11/14/07
http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/11/edwards_mailer_in_iowa_reiterates_his_threat_to_take_away_congress_health_care.php

Among other things, she talked about the campaign’s fifty state strategy and differentiated Edwards from the strategy used in 2004 and the one she’s hearing from DC consultant types this cycle too. In 2004 the strategy was the Gore states plus Florida. This year many of the Democratic political class is looking to a Kerry states plus Ohio.

Elizabeth said thats not how John Edwards will campaign if he gets the nomination, she noted the Democrats didn’t air one ad in North Carolina in 2004. They were up in Louisiana for about two seconds.

She went on, “They didn’t run one ad in Tennessee, because Al Gore didn’t carry it in 2000. Kansas? Thomas Frank wrote a whole book about What’s the Matter with Kansas. And Oklahoma, what state could be more Republican than Oklahoma? OK Montana.”

Boston for Edwards 10/27/07
http://eyeopener.typepad.com/bostonforedwards/2007/10/elizabeth-edwar.html

Finally, this morning, I get word that I wouldn’t be talking to John Edwards but that I would get 10 minutes with Elizabeth Edwards. I talked this over with my editor — we don’t want to be obligated to talk to every candidate’s spouse who comes through town, but agreed that Elizabeth had an exceptional story because of her ongoing battle with cancer. We agreed that Bill Clinton would probably also be an exception.So the interview was a go. In the afternoon, I got a call from the Edwards campaign inquiring about the questions I would be posing. I don’t feel obligated to give advance notice of my questions, but I wanted to be upfront in this case. I said that among my questions, I would ask, “Would you address the rumor of your husband’s affair?”

Out of respect for Elizabeth Edwards and because the rumors were unsubstantiated, I said I would not press the issue beyond asking the single question — but that I felt obliged to ask it.

The campaign worker did her best to convince me that it wasn’t a legitimate question. I asked if she was saying that I couldn’t do the interview if I was going to ask that question. I didn’t get a straight answer, so I asked if I would get the interview if I agreed not to ask the question — if she wanted that ground rule.

The campaign worker was sharp. She immediately asked that if it was a ground rule, would I then write that I got the interview because I agreed to the ground rule?

I said I would indeed mention, at least on the blog, that such a provision was required for me to get the interview. She said she’d get back to me, and later called to say the interview had been cancelled.

snip

I think I made the right decisions in how I handled this. I subsequently talked it over with my editor and a couple of other reporters whose judgement I trust. I was honest with the Edwards campaign, and I proposed what I thought might be a fair compromise (I don’t ask the question, but note the condition of not asking it was required to get the interview).

But I still have my reservations. At what point does something have enough credibility that you ask the participants about it? The standard is higher when the issue is personal, like adultery, but how much higher? Is it possible to fully do one’s job in the mainstream of an industry — in this case, daily newspaper journalism — and not abide the evolving standards of that industry?

Orange County Register 10/19/07
LINK

Elizabeth Edwards says she’s not surprised that she and husband John Edwards won a poll on happy marriages among presidential candidates.

She says jokingly that the competition wasn’t very tough.

The Ladies Home Journal survey released last week shows 52 percent of women thought the Democratic couple from Chapel Hill are happily married. U.S. Sen. John McCain and his wife, Cindy, led Republican candidates with 35 percent.

WTN TV 10/17/07
http://www.witntv.com/home/headlines/10613152.html

Lynda Waddington has an interesting account of a joint appearance of former Sen. John Edwards and his outspoken wife, Elizabeth, in Cedar Rapids. An Iowan asked about whether John Edwards would fight to ensure that every vote was counted before conceding a general election (harkening back to Kerry’s concession in 2004, before irregularities in Ohio had been fully investigated, and Gore’s concession in 2000, after a fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court). John gave the answer that a candidate is allowed to give: yes, I’ll fight, etc. etc. But then he handed the mic to Elizabeth, who made an argument that John could not have made himself:

“The votes don’t belong to Al Gore or John Kerry or John Edwards,” she said. “They belong to you and it can’t be our decision not to count your vote. It belongs to you and the promise was made to you that your votes would be counted. That’s the first thing — it should never have been the candidate’s decision if the votes were counted.

“The second thing is this is the reason we need to nominate John. The truth of the matter is that you hear Democrats all the time say that we should win all the same states. After 2000, they said, ‘and Florida.’ And now they say, ‘We need to win all the states and Ohio.’ Why in the world would we take such a chance when we have a candidate who, in the battleground states, is by far the most electable candidate?”

Elizabeth went on to say that, when husband is the likely nominee and placed against the likely Republican nominee, he wins nearly every state. In the same situation, she said, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wins less than half and Sen. Barack Obama wins less than a third.

“You want a cushion in the event that there are shenanigans someplace?” she asked. “This is the guy you need. What’s more than that, we need to campaign everyplace. Howard Dean is right. We need a 50-state strategy. Are we going to win Utah? Not likely, but that doesn’t mean we don’t play there and that doesn’t mean we don’t fight there. You know in 2004 we didn’t run a single television advertisement in the state of North Carolina and there was a North Carolinian on the ballot. Why? Because the pubahs in Washington all decided that we can’t win the state of North Carolina.”

Pundits have mentioned this phenomenon — of Elizabeth coming out strong because she is covered in the political equivalent of teflon — to explain arguments Elizabeth has sparked about Sen. Hillary Clinton’s electability, abut Ann Coulter’s divisiveness, and other things, but this event is an obvious example, because John and Elizabeth were standing right next to each other, and they gave answers that differed greatly not just in content but also in tone.

Lynda’s writeup on Iowa Independent has audio of the exchange (at the bottom of the page).

Chase Martin On Display

http://cmondisplay.com/2007/10/08/john-edwards-uses-elizabeth-to-say-what-he-cant-even-when-hes-standing-nearby/

Elizabeth Edwards, in an interview with Air America Radio, said that she’s “disappointed” that the Kerry campaign conceded the election so quickly in 2004.

“I was very disappointed, not just because we did not count the votes, but because we promised people that if they stood in line and fought for the right to vote, that we would fight with them,” Mrs. Edwards told Richard Green, the host of “Clout” on Air America Radio.

“And I was very disappointed that the decision was made by the campaign, over John’s objection, not to fight,” she added.

Has either of the Edwards pair ever pointed a finger at Kerry for this before?

TPM/election central

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/10/elizabeth_edwards_john_wanted_to_fight_2004_election_results_was_overruled.php

Elizabeth Edwards had some harsh words today for her husband’s 2004 running mate.

Mrs. Edwards, married to former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), said she was “very disappointed” Sen. John Kerry conceded the last presidential race so quickly.

“I was very disappointed, not just because we did not count the votes, but because we promised people that if they stood in line and fought for the right to vote, that we would fight with them,” Mrs. Edwards told Richard Green, the host of “Clout” on Air America Radio.

“And I was very disappointed that the decision was made by the campaign, over John’s objection, not to fight,” she added.

Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/10/04/elizabeth-edwards-very-d_n_67227.html

In the interview, Edwards also suggested that John Kerry shouldn’t have conceded when he did in 2004.

RG: Were you disappointed that Sen. Kerry conceded as quickly as he did?

EE: I was very disappointed, not just because we did not count the votes, but because we promised people that if they stood in line and fought for the right to vote, that we would fight with them. And I was very disappointed that the decision was made by the campaign, over John’s objection, not to fight.

You can listen to the interview here.

Politico 10/4/07
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1007/Elizabeth_Takes_on_Limbaugh.html

Elizabeth is her husband’s most vocal, frequent hatchet (wo)man

Is Elizabeth Edwards helping or hurting her husband’s presidential campaign?

snip: … As John Edwards struggles to remain a viable alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, she has become her husband’s most vocal and frequent hatchet (wo)man, launching salvos at his rivals that others (especially would-be first ladies) wouldn’t dare. Indeed, until their latest debate at Dartmouth College on Wednesday, John Edwards himself had been a less aggressive critic than his wife.

snip: But the question actually reflects less on Elizabeth Edwards than it does on her husband’s campaign. Did the Edwards camp, recognizing Elizabeth’s invincibility, goad her into launching these broadsides, potentially driving up her own negatives? Aides insist she answers to no one. But can she be her husband’s biggest asset if she is viewed as polarizing as, say, Hillary Clinton was in 1992? Polls show Clinton and Obama outrank John Edwards as the “second choice” of Democratic voters, meaning they, not he, benefit more when the other one loses support.

We’re dealing with uncharted waters here — a woman who, unlike Hillary Clinton in 1992, has established a positive national image, reinforced by voters’ admiration for the strength she has displayed in her battle with cancer, who’s now choosing to expend her own “political capital” by launching broad critiques she hopes will benefit her husband.

Take, for example, this video she taped this week as part of the campaign’s bid to raise money in the closing days of the third quarter. “Sometimes we put things off, don’t we? We think we have all the time in the world. But we don’t…. Sometimes we can’t wait,” says Edwards, staring into the camera as she sits in a wicker chair on a porch. “The question is, what are you going to do? Are you going to step up? … The truth is, we don’t have all the time in the world.”

Is she talking about raising campaign money… or life?

MSNBC Politics

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21016080/

Elizabeth Edwards, the outspoken wife of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, stepped up her attacks over rival Hillary Clinton’s record on health care Monday, alleging the New York Democrat abandoned her effort in the 1990’s to save “political capital.”

In an interview with the New York Daily News, Mrs. Edwards said Clinton’s first attempt at health care reform “failed when the Clinton administration….said, ‘We’re not going to use any more political capital on this, on the fight for universal health care.’ And that’s an important part that Sen. Clinton leaves out.”

Comments are worth reading

CNN/Political Ticker

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/09/25/mrs-edwards-clinton-scrapped-90s-health-plan-for-political-capital/