I knew you wouldn't want to miss this:
What EDWARDS HAS That Kerry DOESN'T
By Andrew Ferguson--Bloomberg News
Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- With the March 2 presidential
primaries in 10 states looming over the political landscape like the Big Kahuna, Democrats might appreciate a quick guide to the differences between their two remaining serious candidates, John Kerry and John Edwards.
Both are faithful Democrats, both wealthy, handsome and well- tailored.
As senators, both voted to authorize the Iraq war, favor
keeping the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, and advocate
ambitious but incremental reform of the nation's health-care
system.
But if you want to see where they differ, try this: get hold
of a transcript from the debate held earlier this month in
Milwaukee. There you will find the difference in a nutshell -- a very roomy nutshell.
Midway through the debate, a reporter asked Kerry whether,
having voted for the Iraq war, he felt any responsibility for ``its costs and casualties.''
Pull up a chair.
``This is one of the reasons why I am so intent on beating
George Bush,'' Kerry replied, ``and why I believe I will beat George Bush, because one of the lessons that I learned when I was an instrument of American foreign policy, I was that cutting-edge instrument. I carried that M-16....''
Rinse and Repeat
A minute later, Kerry was still talking: ``There was a right
way to do this and a wrong way to do it.'' Another minute passed and he was still putting the finishing touches on his answer, which, it turned out, wasn't really an answer.
``Let me repeat the question,'' the frustrated reporter said.
And Kerry was off again, for another 90 seconds. He mentioned Bill Clinton, the War Powers Act, and former Republican foreign policy bigwigs Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft, yet never got around to saying whether he felt any responsibility for the consequences of his vote.
``There was a right way to do it,'' he said once more, ``and
a wrong way to do it.''
The reporter gave up and asked the same question of Edwards,
who shot a sly glance at Kerry.
``That's the longest answer I ever heard to a `yes' or `no'
question,'' Edwards said. ``The answer to your question is, `Of course.' I did what I believed was right.''
Self-Referential
My point in reprinting these replies is not that Kerry talks
too much -- all politicians talk too much -- but that so much of his talk is undisciplined, self-referential and pompously unappealing.
Here he stands in sharp contrast to Edwards, who is
by far the more disciplined political performer of the two --and, though Democrats may be reluctant to admit it, the better candidate, too.
In many respects it's not even a fair contest. Kerry has been cocooned for nearly 20 years in the U.S. Senate, where the art of moral persuasion has largely vanished. Despite its self-advertisement as the ``world's greatest deliberative body,'' the Senate is scene to more sloppy, self-indulgent oratory than a televised Grammy awards show.
Trial Practice
Edwards, on the other hand, honed his skills during 25 years
as a trial lawyer -- pacing courtrooms, pruning arguments, trying to keep juries awake. His stump speech, repeated as often as six times a day for more than a year, is buffed till it glows. In five minutes he can cover more issues, and push more hot buttons, than Kerry can handle in half an hour.
Republicans like to complain that Democrats wage ``class
warfare.'' They mean the phrase metaphorically, but with Edwards they get the real thing. ``I believe,'' he says in his stump speech, ``that the son of a millworker can go toe-to-toe with the son of a president.''
Edwards uses his working-class roots to draw a distinction
with Kerry on trade policy, the only substantive issue where a distinction between the two can be made.
Kerry -- educated in a Swiss boarding school, son of a
foreign service officer, husband to an heiress -- voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 as a Massachusetts senator.
Edwards says he opposed it, though he wasn't in the
Senate when the treaty passed, because he has seen the ravages of free trade in the abandoned textile mills of his state, North Carolina.
Electability `Issue'
Yet the real distinction Edwards wants to draw involves
``electability,'' this year's instant political cliche and
supposedly Kerry's greatest strength as a candidate.
Electability
is a strangely post-modern rationale for a campaign; it presumes that voters will vote for a candidate because they think voters will vote for him.
Among the party faithful, weighing similar alternatives, this line of reasoning is vaguely plausible. But it vanishes when a candidate moves from the insular world of primaries into a general election, where fully a third of the electorate will have no party affiliation.
And it's precisely among these independent voters
that Edwards has shown his greatest strength in such states as Wisconsin and South Carolina.
In November, voters will vote for the candidate who has
withstood six months of pitiless exposure, including a series of debates with President George W. Bush, and survived with his personal appeal intact.
Democrats should ask: Is Edwards more
likely than Kerry to wear well? That's one more ``yes or no
question'' that John Kerry might have trouble answering.
--Editors: Ahearn, Gettinger, Bray, Sillitoe. |
