John Edwards 2008: What’s not to like

Hillary Clinton didn’t just fail to get universal health care as First Lady, she and her husband, Bill, ditched it to stockpile political clout for other fights, Elizabeth Edwards told the Daily News.

“It failed when the Clinton administration pulled this, when they 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,” Edwards insisted during a wide-ranging interview with The News.

snip: “They lost the fight in 1993, pulled it out because they wanted to use their political capital to get NAFTA passed as opposed to universal health care in ‘94,” added Edwards, the wife of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards.

snip: And even though Clinton boasts of having “the scars to show” for her failed health care fight, Elizabeth Edwards said the Democratic front-runner still doesn’t get it.

“She’s wrong on how it is we get universal health care - and her own experience should have taught her that,” she said.

Clinton’s campaign declined to respond to Edwards’ broadsides.

Edwards, 58, has drawn a bull’s-eye on Clinton’s back, having claimed that she is “more joyful” than the former First Lady and that her husband would be a better White House advocate for women.

She said Clinton’s new health care plan is a virtual copy of her husband’s, with one difference being Clinton would invite lobbyists to the negotiating table.

“We think that’s the wrong direction to go,” she said. “If you sit down and negotiate with them, you’re going to give away something the American people need.”

NY Daily News

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/2007/09/25/2007-09-25_clintons_tanked_90s_health_plan_for_clou-3.html

Video:

snip: “I don’t think we should engage in revisionism,” said Mrs. Edwards. “I am glad she did that health care plan. I was impressed with her when she did it. But did she learn something from it? I can’t see what she’s learned.”

Mrs. Edwards also struck back at criticisms in recent days from the Clinton campaign that her husband’s White House bid is “flagging.”

“Whenever we make a substantive statement with respect to some way in which we think Sen. Clinton is not behaving in the best interest of the American public, not representing the kind of president that we need in the future, the response of that campaign is exactly the same every single time,” she said. “They use the words ‘flagging campaign’ as if you can erase, just erase everything John said. There’s no merit to it whatsoever.”

“When we quit having the People magazine race and start having the actual race for president, when people are deciding which candidate best represents their aspirations and their expectations for government, that’s when John succeeds,” Mrs. Edwards said.

The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Mrs. Edwards’ remarks.

CNN Interview

(comments worth noting

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/09/20/clinton-ripped-off-edwards%E2%80%99-health-care-plan-says-wife/

Elizabeth Edwards is accusing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton of copying the health care plan outlined more than seven months ago by her husband, John.

Elizabeth Edwards says the New York senator has failed to lead on an issue in which she has extensive experience.

Her comments came today at an appearance in Columbia (South Carolina).

Edwards calls Clinton’s plan “John Edwards’ health care plan as delivered by Hillary Clinton.”

Elizabeth Edwards has been 1 of Clinton’s sharpest critics. She said Clinton had a chance as first lady in 1993 to push universal health care through Congress and should have been the first Democrat to come up with a new plan for health care.

Clinton’s campaign has responded by saying the senator has worked harder and longer than anyone to improve health care in the U.S.

WAVY TV

http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=7101906&nav=23ii

snip:…When a woman at a house party in Bow, N.H., asked her one recent morning how her husband’s campaign would respond to “the inevitable horrible mudslinging” that is part of presidential politics, you might have thought she was the one in the family who had grown up in a brawling mill town. “It’s a question of being prepared and not having any hesitation,” she said.”You go straight to the nose because then they walk away bleeding. And that’s the point.”

snip: Edwards allows that she occasionally thinks, “Golly, I wish I hadn’t said it that way.” And she insists that she is merely being herself, not part of a campaign strategy. “There is no, and I mean zero, campaign discussion, calculation, anything with respect to this. The second thing is, I don’t usually volunteer this,” Edwards says of these comments about her husband’s front-running rivals. “When I am specifically asked, I simply answer the question, and it’s not a matter of attacking in particular.

snip:…What she calls “my precious time” is even more so since it was revealed in March that her breast cancer, first diagnosed in the final days of the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004, had recurred as Stage IV and is incurable. Statistics suggest only 20% of patients in her situation live for five years. Is Edwards getting a sympathy pass? Rival campaigns think so, though they won’t say so publicly. As one strategist puts it, “She’s bulletproof.”

snip: “There are certain baseline things people require in a First Lady — a graciousness,” she says. “There is sort of a sense of maternal capabilities that we might be looking for. I don’t think that in any way disqualifies Bill, but I do think that if it’s a woman, they’re looking perhaps for something like that.”

snip: Bill Clinton, 61, is also making a conscious effort to stay out of the fray, though when Elizabeth Edwards attacked Hillary as not vocal enough on women’s issues, he rode to his wife’s defense. “If you look at the record on women’s issues, I defy you to find anybody who has run for office in recent history who’s got a longer history of working for women, for families and children, than Hillary does,” Clinton said in an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America. As for Edwards’ contention that Hillary had behaved “as a man,” Clinton retorted, “I don’t think it’s inconsistent with being a woman that you can also be knowledgeable on military and security affairs and be strong when the occasion demands it.”

But he has steered clear of criticizing Hillary’s opponents. “This is a good time for us Democrats,” he says. “We don’t have to be against anybody. We can be for the person we think would be the best President.” Of course, that’s easy to say when your candidate is safely ahead in the polls. If their situation and that of the Edwardses were reversed, “would he be her biggest attack dog like Elizabeth Edwards is? Maybe,” concedes a strategist. “But he gets to be the big guy — at least for now.” Then again, he’s in a supporting role that doesn’t come with a script. No one knows that better than a Clinton.

Time/CNN
Cover Story

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1660946_1661334_1661288-3,00.html

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former President Bill Clinton says Republicans have attacked his wife for the last 15 years but national polls indicate that people don’t hate her.

Clinton responded Wednesday to remarks from the spouse of another Democratic presidential candidate - Elizabeth Edwards.

Edwards, the wife of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, said in a recent interview with Time magazine that “hatred” against New York Sen. Hillary Clinton energizes the Republican base.

“Their nominee won’t energize them, Bush won’t, but Hillary as the nominee will,” Elizabeth Edwards said.

Bill Clinton, in Charlotte for a private fundraising event Wednesday, said while he likes Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, his wife has the experience to win.

“She’s the only one who’s been beat up on 15 years by the Republican attack machine,” Clinton said, noting that national polls place her as the Democratic front-runner.

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/1782490/

snip: She has been called the “unfiltered voice” of the Edwards campaign, and there is obviously something appealing about that in this carefully filtered world. But watching her take on Hillary, again, saying things that are too “hard” for her husband to talk about, frankly makes me uncomfortable.

If Hillary’s negatives are a legitimate issue, why isn’t Sen. Edwards talking about them? What does it say about him that he leaves the “dirty work” to his more sympathetic wife— the mother facing incurable cancer— rather than carrying that load himself?

If he’s afraid of the criticism that would come to him if he validated the haters, why is it acceptable if she does it?

I’m the last person to recognize even a kernel of truth in Ann Coulter’s repeated attacks on the use of victims to say what others can’t, but Elizabeth Edwards is making the number one ranter of the right actually look like she’s onto something.

I’m not big fan of cat fights. When one smart and powerful woman takes on another, especially when she prefaces it by saying that only another woman could comfortably make the charge, I become immediately suspect. Too many people, many of them men, take too much pleasure in seeing powerful women go down together, both covered with mud in the end. The sight of two women in the ring with their gloves off tends to get more attention as a sort of freak show than the legitimacy of the criticism; the substance of the criticism gets repeated, not analyzed.

“Should she be doing it?” becomes the issue, more than “is she right?”

And when the woman who is launching the attack is herself— as Ann would put it— a classic “victim,” it’s even more complicated.

more

Susan Estrich/Fox News

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295660,00.html

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, says “hatred” of his rival Hillary Rodham Clinton would motivate Republicans to vote against her in the general election.

“I want to be perfectly clear: I do not think the hatred against Hillary Clinton is justified,” Elizabeth Edwards said in an interview with Time magazine out this week. “I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t begin to understand it. But you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, and it will energize the Republican base. Their nominee won’t energize them, Bush won’t, but Hillary as the nominee will. It’s hard for John to talk about, but it’s the reality.”

-snip

Elizabeth Edwards has become the voice for many criticisms of her husband’s leading rivals. She has suggested that Obama and his campaign plagiarized material from Edwards’ 2004 presidential campaign and criticized Obama for opposing the Iraq war but voting for the funding, saying that he’s been “behaving in a holier-than-thou way.”

But many of her criticisms have been aimed at Clinton. She’s criticized her for not having the “political will” to enact universal health care. She also said her husband has a better record on women’s issues than Clinton.

Last year, Mrs. Edwards apologized to Clinton after saying her choices in life have made her happier than the New York senator.

Associated Press 8/31/07
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/31/ap4072813.html

Elizabeth Edwards says her husband is a better Democratic presidential candidate because U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton would bring out the Republican base.

“I don’t know where it comes from,” Mrs. Edwards told Time magazine. “I don’t begin to understand it. But you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, and it will energize the Republican base.”

Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., trails Clinton and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in the polls. His wife has been playing a major role in the campaign, drawing media attention with her attacks on right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter and criticizing Obama and Clinton.

“Their nominee won’t energize them, Bush won’t, but Hillary as the nominee will,” Elizabeth Edwards said. “It’s hard for John to talk about, but it’s the reality.”

In her interview with Time, Mrs. Edwards also echoed earlier comments that her husband was not getting as much attention because he is competing against the first woman and first black presidential candidates thought to have a good chance of nomination and election.

United Press International

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/08/30/elizabeth_edwards_clinton_less_electable/7990/