Tuesday, December 26, 2006
John Edwards: Yea Or Nay?
Matt Stoller sums up how I feel about the current crop of front-runners for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Short version: Hillary's hopeless (as Stoller notes, she's been living in the Davos bubble since 1992 and has no idea what modern America looks like), Obama needs to run only so that he'll lose in the primary and then ditch the crippling, right-tacking caution that he thinks is "presidential" so he can be a good Senator, and John Edwards may be who saves us -- if he can show that his recent progressive words and actions are indeed the real deal. I think that they are (especially judging from this and from his work on Darfur), but it wouldn't hurt to press him and make sure he doesn't backslide.
I don't think he has the communications skills to be an effective president.
Look at the answer he gave on card check. Matthews said:
MATTHEWS: You think that`s fair to be able to have four people from a labor union, big people come up to a little person and say you`re going to vote for the union, aren`t you? You`re going to vote for the union, aren`t you? (continues)
The correct answer is,
Winning Presidential Candidate: "Chris, at the present, the guys walking around asking about the union are management. They can and do fire people with impunity for daring to join a union. So, who are you going to be afraid of: guys who fire people for exercising their legal right to join a union, or the guys you work with every day?"
Read Edwards's answer and see how close it is to that of the Winning Presidential Candidate. For a trial lawyer, Edwards is remarkably inept. Matthews paints a caricature of union guys as thugs. A good communicator takes the caricature and paints a different label on the thug.
And then laughs as Matthews chokes on his own saliva.
Post at daily kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/13/03950/886
http://video.msn.com/v/us/dw.htm?m=us&p=truveo&g=afa5b4cb-43e2-4c0f-b3a8-7b7aadf67124
Darfur:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/forallofus/261215011/
http://blog.oneamericacommittee.com/story/2006/10/31/102418/41
http://blog.oneamericacommittee.com/story/2006/11/28/142814/56
: 12/26/2006 10:55:00 AM As you can see from this post - on Hardball, he went on to say why he favors card check and strong unions:
"I think it shows that I am a complete believer in workers having a voice and being able to collectively bargain. I don't think we have a problem in America with big, multinational corporations being able to have their voice heard. Their voice is heard loud and clear."
Bingo.
: 12/26/2006 12:21:00 PM I'm just saying that his windup was too slow. Listening to the tape, it took him about 45 seconds to get to the right answer.
Same thing in dealing with the Cheney debate. He was pretty sharp, don't get me wrong. But it was situation that called for hellfire and brimstone. Cheney repeatedly lied and needed to be told to his face he was lying.
Presidential campaigning is very, very, very difficult. John Kerry may have lost the election over "I was against it before I was for it," which was a clumsy but accurate way to describe dealing with a bill before and after a crucial amendment. He may have lost it over failing to stomp the Swiftboaters into the dust.
John Edwards stood up for our right to vote in Ohio. If he's the nominee, I'll stand up for him. But he's not my first choice.
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