THE NEW REPUBLIC
The only reason a political novice like Edwards can even talk about running for president with a straight face is because he's from the South.
Tuesday
Jason Zengerle
09.16.03, 6:00 p.m.
Garance,
I agree that it's kind of strange for the two of us to be discussing a candidate as seemingly marginal as John Edwards is right now. But then I think it's also somehow fitting, considering how Edwards has long seemed to have a much greater constituency--and served as much a greater source of fascination--among journalists than he has among voters.
But, before I go down that road, let me address some of what you wrote in your first post. You're right that, of late, Edwards's candidacy has been showing some signs of life--movement in the polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina; a good reception at the SEIU meeting; staff on the ground in key states. But this can be considered momentum only because Edwards had been stuck in neutral for so long. Six percent may be better than 2 percent in the Iowa polls, but it's not exactly a groundswell. And I don't think bragging rights over making the SEIU's shortlist will do him much good if he doesn't get the actual endorsement, which you admit is the longest of long shots.
Worst of all is the news from South Carolina. The only reason a political novice like Edwards can even talk about running for president with a straight face is because he's from the South. And for Edwards to poll at 10 percent and be in a four-way tie for first place (even with nearly half of all voters still undecided) in the state that neighbors the one he represents--and, not to mention, is the state of his birth--does not bode well. Consider how the other candidates are doing in their backyards: Gephardt may be trailing Dean in Iowa, but, according to the latest Zogby poll, he's at a respectable 17 percent; and Dean and Kerry are well ahead of everyone else in New Hampshire. And then there's Edwards's standing in his own state. Today's News & Observer, my local paper here in Chapel Hill, has a poll that, for the first time, shows that a majority of North Carolinians actually approve of Edwards decision to seek the presidency. But the same poll shows that, in a head-to-head match-up with President Bush, Edwards loses in his home state 51 to 40. If Edwards can't even distinguish himself on his home turf, how's he going to do it anywhere else?
Which brings us to the question that I get the sense you'd really like us to discuss: Why is Edwards having such a hard time breaking into the first tier, especially when you think back to the unbelievable buzz he had going into this race? I'd argue that there are several answers.
The first has to do with the fact that the buzz was, in hindsight, completely out of proportion to the reality. So what accounted for the buzz? Well, no matter what difficulties Edwards is having on the campaign trail right now, there's no denying that, on a personal level, he's an immensely likable guy. The time I spent with him for a profile I wrote for TNR back in early 2001 was probably the most fun I've ever had hanging out with a politician. Talking with Edwards didn't feel like a stilted interview, but more like a conversation--and a good conversation at that, with moments of humor and insight and candor. I'd imagine other reporters had similar experiences, which had to color their final impressions. I know you wrote a profile on him. Were you similarly seduced?
Then, of course, there was the fact that Edwards more or less came onto the national stage right as Al Gore was exiting it--and Edwards seemed to be everything, stylistically at least, that Gore was not. And since a lot of people attributed Gore's defeat to his style (or lack thereof), Edwards seemed like the perfect antidote to what was ailing the Democrats. Which is why, I think, reporters like myself tended to ignore the things about Edwards that should have given us pause before anointing him the next big thing--like the fact that, prior to his run for the Senate, he'd never shown the slightest interest in politics; that, even in office, he didn't evince much of an interest in policy; and that his one and only political victory came in a year when Democrats across the country were bolstered by the backlash over the Clinton scandal, and the victory was over an extremely weak Republican opponent at that. By any measure, the consensus on Edwards probably should have been that he was a promising up and comer who, in the future, might be a star, but that he still had a lot to prove.
But I think Edwards's presidential campaign might have been able to overcome these shortcomings were it not for September 11, which I think is the other explanation for why Edwards's presidential run hasn't taken off. One of the reasons some of us in the press were so willing to overlook Edwards's inexperience and tout him as a presidential contender was because, prior to 9/11, the presidency didn't seem like that important a job. Managing the economy was obviously no small matter, but the country's national security was not in doubt, and therefore people were probably more willing to take a flier on a candidate who seemed to make up for in native talent and intelligence what he lacked in experience. But, after 9/11, with the nation's security suddenly imperiled, having a relative neophyte in the White House--no matter how smart and attractive and appealing he might be--seemed like too much of a gamble.
That, at least, was my thinking after 9/11, which is when I started to cool on an Edwards run in 2004. And, while I can't exactly prove it with polling data, I do get the sense that when voters talk about Edwards's youth as one of the reasons they're not inclined to vote for him, they're really talking about his inexperience--and his inexperience wouldn't matter to them as much if the country weren't at war. Now, obviously, the fact that Howard Dean--a candidate with zero foreign policy experience--is currently the Democratic front-runner might complicate this theory; but Dean, as a five-term governor, gives the impression that he's been living and breathing politics for a long time. Edwards simply doesn't. And while that might have been appealing at one time, it's not so appealing anymore.
Finally, Edwards has had trouble because Dean stole his thunder: Once upon a time the North Carolina Senator thought he was going to be the race's populist outsider; now that role belongs to Dean (even if he is the front-runner). And while Edwards has adjusted somewhat to the race's new dynamic--finding his stride in the past few months in terms of offering a coherent, compelling message that goes beyond his biography--I don't get the sense that he's any more likely to lay claim to the un-Dean mantle than Gephardt or Kerry. Or, now, Wesley Clark, who, as you note, managed to completely upstage Edwards's official campaign kick-off today in Robbins by leaking word that he was getting into the race. (Although in North Carolina people tended to ignore Edwards's announcement not because they were focusing on a general named Wesley, but because they were fixated on a hurricane named Isabel.)
The thing that most troubles me about Edwards is that, despite his current troubles, he has the potential to be a great politician. But he might never get the chance to realize that potential. Since he's decided not to run again for his Senate seat in 2004, he'll be out of politics in 2005 if he doesn't make it to the White House. And he won't have an obvious way back in for a number of years: The next Senate and gubernatorial races in North Carolina won't be until 2008. So while it's probably a bit premature to write off Edwards's candidacy--who knows, maybe the next Iowa poll will show him rocketing up to 10 percent--I'd be curious for your thoughts as to why a pol as promising as Edwards would stick with this presidential race when it's all but certain that it'll seriously disrupt, if not altogether end, his political career. I have a few ideas of my own, but I'd like to hear yours.
Jason
Garance Franke-Ruta
09.16.03, 1:00 p.m.
Jason,
It feels a little strange to be debating a candidate who has not been a first-tier contender for months-- and to do so the week that a tenth candidate is joining the Democratic presidential race, further marginalizing the person whom we'll be discussing. But North Carolina Senator John Edwards has proved himself to be one of the biggest mysteries of the campaign season thus far, and rather like crop circles and other unexplained phenomena, he continues to draw a kind of fascinated attention. Hopefully, we can use this dialog to get to the bottom of why Edwards's candidacy stalled--and whether it can pick up again.
More than eight months after first announcing his run for the Democratic nomination, today Edwards officially announced and re-declared his candidacy in Robbins, N.C., outside the Milliken & Company mill, where his father Wallace--a sweet, gentle man who looks like a smaller, shorter, more modest version of his son--last worked. Today, as Edwards likes to note, the town is about half Latino. It has no hotel to speak of, and few restaurants. It's the kind of place Edwards likes to refer to when he talks about America's small town values, and helping small towns keep their sons and daughters. In referencing this vanished world and situating his campaign kickoff within it, Edwards is doubtless hoping to link his family's history, his own biography, and his political future in voter's minds.
The past few months have not been kind to the Edwards candidacy. Talk to his press secretary Jennifer Palmieri these days and the heady, chatty enthusiasm she had last spring has been replaced by a script so rote she sounds like she could deliver it in her sleep, and probably has. "We don't have a campaign plan to peak in September of '03. We have a campaign plan to peak in January of '04. The way we have managed our candidate's time, message, and money is to peak in January '04," she says. "It's just too early to see lots of movement."
After months of spinning just that message, though, something new is happening. The Edwards campaign is actually showing signs of life--and signs that the strategy they planned to enact and have doggedly hewn to for the past half-year may slowly be starting to work for them. In a September 8-9 Zogby International poll of likely Iowa caucus voters, Edwards passed Senator Joe Lieberman for the first time, seizing fourth place in Iowa, with 6 percent support. Sure, this shift in position happened as much because Lieberman dropped five points as because Edwards gained two since April, but the net result is that Edwards is now within margin-of-error reach of Senator John Kerry in Iowa. In New Hampshire, Edwards has slowly--thanks to a considerable ad buy, around a dozen Town Hall meetings, and nearly as many visits to the state as Kerry--crept up from around 2 percent support in June to 6 percent today, according to a September 2-3 Boston Globe poll. That's placed him in a statistical tie for third place in the state with Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman, both at 7 percent.
When the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) met in Washington, D.C., last week, attendees cheered Edwards's speech and, later, voted to give him their second highest level of support, after Howard Dean. With that, Edwards managed to squeeze his way onto the SEIU shortlist, along with Dean and Gephardt, for a potential endorsement come fall. Bagging that endorsement would be the longest of long shots, but just getting on the shortlist was a braggable accomplishment--something Edwards has not had on the campaign trail in months. "John Edwards, a person who a lot of members didn't know much about, introduced himself powerfully, and moved from having almost no support to being one of the top three candidates that the members leaving this conference are interested in," noted SEIU president Andrew Stern in a post-conference statement.
Edwards had a one-point lead in South Carolina over Dean and two points over Lieberman, according to a September 2-3 Zogby poll, in a wide-open race where 46 percent of voters are undecided and the top four candidates were effectively tied. While the real news from that poll to my mind was that Dean was as strong as he was there, given that his campaign had paid little attention to the state, that 10 percent support figure nonetheless represents the first time Edwards has led any poll, anywhere. And again: Lieberman's loss has been Edwards's gain, in ranking if not support. Edwards was already at 10 percent in South Carolina in an early August poll, but trailing Lieberman, who was then at 14 percent and has since apparently declined. "Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, stuck in neutral for several months, is gaining traction in South Carolina, his make-or-break state," reported South Carolina's The State on Sunday, noting the results of another new poll favorable to Edwards in the state where he was born.
Edwards now has paid political staff on the ground in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona, Virginia, and Wisconsin, giving him a foothold in the two earliest state contests as well as those with primaries or caucuses between February 3 and February 17. By month's end, the campaign will have brought Michigan staff on board as well, gearing up for that state's February 7 face-off. Edwards has run television ads in four states--Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Oklahoma. He's got $8 million in the bank, according to Palmieri, and while his third-quarter fundraising numbers are likely to be his lowest yet, he nonetheless has enough cash on hand to mount a credible multi-state campaign through mid-February, 2004.
That means that, unlike Bob Graham, Edwards remains a candidate whose presence must be taken seriously, at the very least for financial and organizational reasons. As Kerry's apparently listing campaign "plugs holes" and as Lieberman continues to shoot himself and the whole Democratic Party in the electoral foot, over and over, Edwards could find himself with an opening and an opportunity for some renewed attention and forward movement. The more negative attacks Kerry, Lieberman, and Gephardt put forth and the more intent each becomes on taking up the mantle of the anti-Dean, the more Edwards gets to flash his tan, telegenic, smiling face as something no one has yet tried to be: the upbeat, positive un-Dean.
As fate would have it, though, just as Edwards looked to be getting on track for yet another of his mini-booms in the press, along comes General Wesley Clark and the end of the third quarter's Deaniac September to Remember. Once Dean rocks the political World--again--by proving that he's got a better fundraising machine than Bill Clinton did as an incumbent POTUS and when Clark officially enters the race, Edwards will--again--find himself mired in the bunched middle of the Democratic pack.
If that occurs, though, Edwards's role as the un-Dean can nonetheless be an interesting one. One of the less remarked upon dynamics developing of late is how the second- and third-tier candidates are relating to the field's leaders. While Lieberman has gone on the attack, Carol Moseley Braun and Graham seem to be doing their level best to provide ballast for Dean and to be helping him out in debates. It'll be interesting to see what Edwards does. His aides say that, for the foreseeable future, he plans to run a pretty clean campaign, only stopping to point out what he considers egregious errors of fact.
I know that you have many thoughts on why Edwards has Gone--and may be going--nowhere. So I'll stop here, and add my own thoughts on that question after your reply.
Garance
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