Edwards Stings His Rivals, Smiling All the While
In the traditional role of running mate, the senator is growing more aggressive. But party loyalists ask if he's being
used effectively.
September 19, 2004
latimes.com
THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE
.
By Mark Z. Barabak, Times Staff Writer
RENO - The audience has assembled and Sen. John Edwards begins to make
his case, starting with a rat-a-tat of statistics: 4 million Americans have slipped
into poverty over the last four years; 5 million have lost their health insurance;
1.5 million jobs have vanished from the private sector.
The Democratic vice presidential candidate is speaking in front of the University
of Nevada alumni center, a breeze ruffling his hair as the crowd of 4,000 stands
before him on the grassy quad.
"Do you want a president
of the United States, like
this one, who's going to
keep fighting for tax cuts
for wealthy millionaires?
Or do you want a
president who'll actually
fight for tax cuts for the
middle class of this
country?" he asks. "Do
you want a president
who's going to stand with
Halliburton and the big oil
companies of America?
Or do you want a
president who'll actually
fight for the environment,
and fight for energy independence for this country?"
In the Democratic primaries, Edwards was the candidate of sunshine, standing apart by shunning harsh
attacks that marked the fight for the nomination. Once Sen. John F. Kerry picked the North Carolina
senator as his running mate, the question was whether Edwards would take up the cudgel that vice
presidential candidates normally carry - making the sharp-edged remarks presidential nominees would
rather not.
The answer seems to be evolving. Edwards grew more aggressive in recent weeks as momentum in the
White House race shifted to President Bush and Kerry came under increasing fire, an assault often led by
Vice President Dick Cheney.
"It's important for the country … that we lay out what has happened over the last four years," Edwards
said in an interview, discussing his change in tone.
He said voters initially looking at the Democratic ticket "wanted to know who we were, what we
believed." Now, he added, the time has come "when we need to lay out a clear and dramatic contrast on
what they've done and what we want to do for the country."
Hear Edwards these days on the campaign trail: Bush and Cheney will do and say anything to get
reelected; the president thinks he is Ken Lay and America is his Enron; Cheney's suggestion that a Kerry
presidency would invite a terrorist attack is "un-American," and Bush ought to say so.
Throughout all the tough words, Edwards' broad smile rarely leaves his face.
It is a gift, Kerry strategists say, to deliver a harsh message without seeming angry, and they are loath to
squander Edwards' ability to do so - even if it means fewer stories from a media entourage hungry for
conflict. (Edwards' unvaried repetition of the same remarks day in, day out, also doesn't lend itself to
widespread coverage.)
"He manages to get his point across without hitting people over the head with a hammer,'' said Jenny
Backus, a Democratic media strategist. "That may not be a style that works in a short headline or a short
sound bite on TV, but he's getting great coverage wherever he's going."
For now, that tends to be the smaller media markets and rural areas of the campaign's battleground
states. The result has been a lot of positive stories in local media - and also a perception among political
observers that Edwards has been relegated to second-tier status in the campaign.
The Kerry camp disputed that notion.
"People inside the Beltway say he's disappeared for the last six weeks because all they've talked about is
[the campaign] process for the last six weeks," said Nick Baldick, who managed Edwards' presidential bid
and was now working for Kerry in Florida. "He's not a part of those stories…. He's out with voters, in the
media markets that matter from Arizona to Wisconsin, talking about change," said Baldick.
But some party loyalists questioned whether Edwards - who, they said, often made the case for Kerry
better than Kerry himself - was being put to the most effective use.
Diane Burnett, a 57-year-old campaign volunteer in Goodyear, Ariz., showed up for a recent Edwards
appearance in Tucson with her daughter and daughter-in-law. They voiced support for Kerry, but gushed
over Edwards.
"Love him," Burnett said. "Absolute appeal. Charisma."
"Kerry can be a little cold. John Edwards brings a more personal side to it for people who need it," said
Jennifer Burnett, her daughter-in-law. "He should be out there as much as Dick Cheney, if not more."
"We need that now,'' said Lisa Carrier, her daughter. "That's what we want to hear. We need to hear the
fight."
But Edwards suggested that partisans were different from the swing voters he and Kerry needed to
capture the White House.
"I think that for most voters, the hottest rhetoric is not what they find most persuasive,'' he said in the
interview. "What they find persuasive is a message that is true and compelling. I've spent a lot of my life
convincing people about what's true and compelling, and think I have a real sense in my gut about what
works."
It is a skill Edwards' honed in the courthouse as one of North Carolina's most successful personal injury
lawyers. Campaigning, it often seems he is back at the bar, presenting his argument to a jury of a
different sort. There is the broad opening statement, a kind of point-by-point indictment of Bush and
Cheney, followed by a methodical - if selective - presentation of evidence, often starting, "The truth of
the matter is … "
"The truth of the matter is that what happens when a CEO runs a company the way that George Bush
has run America, they get fired," Edwards said, as he stood in front of a climbing wall in Oregon City,
Ore., where he accepted the endorsement of 30 sporting industry executives.
Bush might blame the tepid economy on the Sept. 11 attacks and all manner of other excuses, Edwards
told a luncheon crowd later that day in Portland. But the truth of the matter, he went on, is "for the last 75
years, through 11 presidents … presidents who led us through World War, the Korean War, Vietnam
War, Cold War, all kinds of recession, every one of those presidents created jobs, until this president, until
George W. Bush."
Edwards has a knack for delivering the same lines over and over - and the ability to make the same
joke, with the same half-beat pause and punch line - without sounding stale or rote.
Lately he has seized on Cheney's suggestion that standard economic yardsticks fail to measure the novel
ways people make money, such as selling things on EBay
"If we only included bake sales and how much money kids make at lemonade stands, this economy would
really be cooking," Edwards said, laughing along with the audience for the umpteenth time.
That is the way he typically bares his fangs - as part of a toothy grin. "These guys are absolutely
amazing," Edwards begins, smiling and shaking his head as he launches another attack.
Unlike Bush strategists, Kerry's campaign seems less interested in meshing the ticket's daily messages.
Monday, for instance, Bush and Cheney both discussed healthcare in separate campaign stops. Kerry
talked about the lapse of the 10-year federal ban on assault-style weapons. But in three appearances that
day - in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada - Edwards never mentioned the subject.
That was partly because gun control is not a winning issue for Democrats in the Southwest. But more
broadly, Kerry strategists believed it was more effective for the presidential hopeful to present the
campaign's "national" message while Edwards worked to generate local coverage.
"It's a strategy very much focused on key states and key markets within those states and delivering a
very targeted message," said Mark Kornblau, the spokesman for the Edwards campaign.
Observers said it was a tough call, deciding whether the positive local stories that Edwards generates
were better for the Kerry campaign than the more extensive national attention he might get with a harder
hitting, Cheney-like approach. But that clearly isn't Edwards' style.
"They certainly had a good sense when they picked him what kind of campaigner he was," said Bill
Carrick, a Democratic media consultant unaffiliated with Kerry's effort. "If all of a sudden he shows up
and he's Darth Vader, it's not going to be effective." |
