John Edwards 2008: What’s not to like

According to Hitwise, Senator Hillary Clinton’s official site drew the most traffic in October, gaining over 7 points in traffic share after languishing in second and third place for months. Senator Barack Obama lost about four points and slipped to second with about 32 percent share last month.

Meanwhile, John Edwards held steady in the third spot, but dropped about 3 points in traffic share. However, while Clinton and Edwards each had around 22 percent traffic share in August, Edwards has lost 11 percentage points and Clinton picked up about 11 since then.

Weazl’s Revenge 11/12/07
http://weazlsrevenge.blogspot.com/2007/11/another-way-to-look-at-candidates.html

Since September, and as White House hints of military action against Iran intensify, the Edwards campaign has changed a key passage in its website’s discussion of Iran.

As of September 7, the passage read:

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will soon be deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. As president, Edwards will ensure that such steps are not just more rhetoric, but actually lead to results.

The passage now reads:

Congress recently passed a bill to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. We saw in Iraq where such steps by Congress can lead President Bush. Edwards has announced his opposition to this bill.

The rest of the text of the 2,000-word foreign policy page is unchanged. And while this is obviously an update to keep pace with the news, the first version lacks any condemnation of the planned terrorist designation.

The Politico 11/5/07
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1107/A_change_on_Iran.html

Babb, 23, interviewed an Edwards volunteer and a campus columnist about the campaign’s headquarters in the upscale Southern Village shopping center in Chapel Hill.

She posted it on YouTube on Tuesday night. The next morning, Colleen Murray, a spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign, called her.

“She said this sounds like it came straight from the Republican Party,” Babb said. “She was like, ‘This has to come down.’ “

Babb referred Murray to her faculty adviser, C.A. Tuggle. Murray and Edwards’ communications director, Chris Kofinis, then called Tuggle. He said they asked him not to air the story and to pull it from YouTube.

Tuggle said they threatened to cut off access to Edwards for UNC reporters and other student groups if he did not pull the piece. He declined to do so.

snip

Online, the segment drew a split reaction. Some who commented said the Edwards campaign overreacted to an innocuous story, while others attacked Babb for being a registered Republican.

Babb said she was surprised, pointing out that she was an intern for U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge, a Democrat from her hometown of Lillington, while an undergraduate at N.C. State University.

“My political affiliation isn’t in any of my stories,” she said.

News & Observer 10/27/07
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/751369.html

Tuggle said they threatened to cut off access to Edwards for UNC student reporters and other student groups if the piece aired.

“My gosh, what are they thinking?” Tuggle said. “They’re spending this much time and effort on a student newscast that has about 2,000 viewers? They’re turning a molehill into a mountain.”

snip

The campaign would not answer questions about the incident.

The segment, by graduate student Carla Babb, began as a look at Nation Hahn, a UNC senior interning with the campaign. During the interview, Babb asked about a recent column in The Daily Tar Heel, the student newspaper, criticizing Edwards’ choice of the posh Southern Village shopping center as the location for his headquarters.

Babb rewrote the piece to focus on that angle and interviewed the columnist, prompting the complaint from Edwards’ campaign.

In the video, James Edward Dillard, a columnist for The Daily Tar Heel, says that the location conflicts with Edwards’ campaign goal of reducing poverty in America.

“To pick that place as your campaign center, when you’re going to be the man who advocates on behalf of the poor, I just think, why not turn the media’s attention to somewhere where there are huge, huge problems,” Dillard said.

News & Observer 10/26/07
http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/politicians/edwards/story/750356.html

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A University of North Carolina professor said Friday that John Edwards’ campaign demanded that he pull a student reporter’s television story that focused on the upscale location of the campaign’s headquarters.

snip

In the report, Babb interviews students, one on the campaign, one not. She asks whether it is appropriate for Edwards to base his operations in his affluent hometown of Chapel Hill, home of the university, as opposed to a location that would better reflect his campaign platform of fighting poverty.

After quoting the students, Babb concludes her report by saying, “It’s ultimately up to the voters to decide if running a presidential campaign here was a smart move politically. But it’s safe to say, in Chapel Hill, opinions are split. “

In an interview Friday, Babb said: “I was completely shocked to get a phone call from the Edwards campaign saying that the story was straight from the Republican Party and that we needed to take it down.”

She said she wanted to do a story about student opinions about Edwards’ headquarters near campus in Chapel Hill’s Southern Village.

Tuggle is the news director of “Carolina Week” and the broadcast professor who advises students for the newscast.

“Was it what the campaign was expecting it to be? No,” Tuggle said. “But I don’t know that we’re obligated as journalists to tell that the focus of a story has changed.”

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, graduated with a law degree from the university and helped develop and operate a poverty center there after the 2004 election.

Associated Press 10/26/07
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jT_22_42_Xn06RaH8yBgv0YZWtEwD8SH4V080

Taylor Marsh

So far, I’ve been one of the only people (the only?) to address, comment or take on the Edwards’ Bubba strategy devised by Mudcat Saunders. As a woman and a member of a majority of the voting populace, I find his none too shy, white southern male electability strategy not only sexist, but offensive, not to mention ridiculous beyond the rhetorical stage. Sure we have to compete in all 50 states and make Republicans spend money, but as Mike Lux stated in our interview, as did Thomas Schaller, we’re not going to win the south. Edwards is channeling Mudcat who believes otherwise, as long as we have the right candidate, which means not Hillary. But Edwards also lumps Barack Obama in with this philosophy, which when you look at Mudcat’s Bubba strategy smacks of something much more and I’m not just talking about desperation.

Jake Tapper has some audio on Edwards stumping and making his electablity case. His ABC post focuses on what Edwards is doing with his electability argument.

“… .. If you’re running in a tough congressional district somewhere in America, anywhere in America, and I’m in one right now, okay…You gotta ask yourself would you rather have Senator Obama at the top of the ticket to help, Senator Clinton at the top of the ticket to help, or John Edwards at the top of the ticket to help. … .. You got to have someone who is strong in all those places and who is not a drag on candidates who are trying to win in those places. … .. The easiest way to do it, honestly, is to picture in your head each of us running in a tough place — we’re in one right now — and which one’s going to be more helpful and which one’s not, because I think that does matter.” - John Edwards

Said in a vacuum there’s nothing wrong with this statement. It’s got a lot of truth to it. But when you put it inside Mudcat’s Bubba strategy to go after white male rural voters, then put “Cooter” from the “Dukes of Hazzard” in the mix, you’ve got a whole different picture and it’s not pretty.

”John Edwards is the kind of guy who can not only lead this country in these very difficult times and bring it back together,” Jones said, “but he’s also a Democrat who can be elected in Hazard County — if you know what I mean — in the red states, out in the country.” - Ben “Cooter” Jones, from Dukes of Hazzard

“Hazzard County — If you know what I mean”? I know exactly what good old “Cooter” means. I grew up in Missouri, a place that had its share of racism back when I was growing up. The message couldn’t be clearer: confederate flag, big ole truck, gun rack on the back, with some white guy revving the engine. I get it.

was recently interviewed by a major newspaper about my “Edwards Channels Mudcat” piece and how the campaign is now working its electability line. The reporter asked me if anyone else had written on the subject. Until Jake Tapper of ABC there has been virtual silence on it. If I was an Edwards supporter I wouldn’t want my candidate to go down this very dark road. But the truth is that Edwards supporters believe their candidate can do no wrong so they’ll likely give him cover. They shouldn’t.

With a wink and a nod, John Edwards is talking about candidates running in a “tough place” that will be harder to win with Hillary at the top. Okay. But implying that it will also be tough for candidates down ticket to win if Obama’s on the ticket, then place this analysis in the middle of Mudcat Saunders’ Bubba strategy and you’re going way beyond the polarizing talking point that dogs Hillary Clinton.

John Edwards is not a sexist. He’s not a racist either. But he is obviously desperate. Because what he’s saying on the stump is meant to convince primary voters that he can appeal to Bubba; someone who isn’t going to vote for a woman or a black man, but might cast a vote for Edwards. Let’s face it, Bubba could never handle a woman with her finger on the nuclear trigger; as for a black man, forget it. It’s a strategy to convince primary voters that Edwards can capture votes Clinton and Obama can’t, which will lead him to the White House. Because we all know that in a “tough place” — if you know what I mean — somewhere, anywhere in America, there are voters who can’t stand the thought of a woman or a black man leading this country. Catch my drift?

Taylor Marsh.com

http://www.taylormarsh.com/

Rielle Hunter Shows the Real John EdwardsOut of a couple of thousand (conservative estimate) unemployed film grads loitering around, the only one the John Edwards campaign could find is Rielle Hunter? They met in a bar, which sounds weird, but who knows? She sold him on the idea of webisodes to show the country the “real John Edwards”.

Sam Stein writes about the disappearance of the Hunter-Edwards oeuvre from the web. The Daily Kos readers are very upset with Stein and for good measure, Arianna.

The mini docs. cost the campaign a total of $100,000 and the only one remaining to view has Edwards telling us he’s not a “plastic Ken doll”. Money well spent!

Don’t forget, this is the guy who dumped bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan when things got too sticky.

Media Bistro 9/28/07
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlLA/show_business/rielle_hunter_shows_the_real_john_edwards_67928.asp

In the summer of 2006, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards commissioned a series of web-based documentary shorts for his pre-announcement leadership PAC, the One America Committee. Within political circles, the videos were regarded as innovative, having successfully painted Edwards in a sympathetic, down-to-earth light.Now, however, nearly all traces of the webisodes - as they became known - are gone. Links to them on the Internet no longer work. The Edwards campaign won’t release the videos, and the production company behind the films is citing confidentiality agreements in refusing to talk.

This closed-off approach naturally aroused my interest. In the world of politics, rare is the candidate who passes on a chance for publicity. The campaign’s explanation for stonewalling, moreover, struck me as dubious and at times evasive.

I had come to the Edwards’ videos in a haphazard way: the byproduct of a story I was writing on new technology and politics. The webisodes were not, in any regard, a secret. Edwards’ “behind the scenes” portrait had earned rave reviews in the blogosphere and even a small feature in Newsweek. But nothing had been written about the films since Edwards announced his presidential aspirations, and I wanted to know how the footage would play on the campaign trail.

What followed was a lesson in the profound irritations of political reporting. A call to Edwards’ press shop led to an email to his One America Committee representative, which led, in turn, to a mind-bending exchange about campaign finance law, which culminated in a separate conversation with Edwards’ deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince. Each time I was told that the One America Committee could not use “material that could be considered promoting the presidential campaign,” and that Edwards’ camp “no longer had access to most of the content.”

snip

How much did the videos cost? According to campaign finance reports, the One America Committee made four payments of $12,500 and two of $25,000, for a total of $100,000 to Midline Groove Productions in the second half of 2006.

snip

Not lost in the matter is the irony of Edwards’ stance. After all, the videos were made with the apparent goal of bringing transparency to the political process. “I’ve come to the conclusion I just want the country to see who I really am,” Edwards declared in the one webisode still public, “not based on some plastic Ken doll you put up in front of audiences.”

Huffington Post 9/26/07
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/26/edwards-mystery-innocuou_n_66070.html

In the beginning of August, liberal bloggers met at the YearlyKos convention while centrist Democrats met at the Democratic Leadership Council’s National Conversation. Almost every Democratic presidential candidate attended YearlyKos, and none visited the D.L.C.

At the time, that seemed a sign that the left was gaining the upper hand in its perpetual struggle with the center over the soul of the Democratic Party. But now it’s clear that was only cosmetic.

Now it’s evident that if you want to understand the future of the Democratic Party you can learn almost nothing from the bloggers, billionaires and activists on the left who make up the “netroots.” You can learn most of what you need to know by paying attention to two different groups — high school educated women in the Midwest, and the old Clinton establishment in Washington.

In the first place, the netroots candidates are losing. In the various polls on the Daily Kos Web site, John Edwards, Barack Obama and even Al Gore crush Hillary Clinton, who limps in with 2 percent to 10 percent of the vote.

snip

Both liberals and Republicans have an interest in exaggerating the netroots’ influence, but in reality that influence is surprisingly marginal, even among candidates for whom you’d think it would be strong.

Several weeks ago, I asked John Edwards what the YearlyKos event was like. He couldn’t remember which event I was talking about, and looked over to an aide for help.

New York Times 9/25/07
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/opinion/25brooks.html

Wonkosphere.com, a new web service which tracks and analyzes the political blogosphere, announced today that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and New York Senator Hillary Clinton led all 2008 presidential candidates in buzz share for the month of August 2007. Romney attracted 20.2% of buzz share from conservative bloggers, while Clinton received 32.4% of buzz share from liberal bloggers.

snip

In the liberal blogosphere, Illinois Senator Barack Obama was also a close second to Clinton, at 32%, while a late rush by former South Carolina Senator John Edwards brought him to third at 15%.

snip

From liberal bloggers, Edwards was followed by Bill Richardson (5%), Chris Dodd (4%), Joe Biden (3%), Dennis Kucinich (2%), and Mike Gravel (1%).

eMediaWire 9/7/07
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2007/9/emw551698.htm