To: Bill who wrote (564 ) 6/10/2007 1:47:27 PM From: Hope Praytochange Respond to This word — “populist” — is thrown around a lot in connection with John Edwards and his presidential campaign. The New Republic titled its Edwards profile “The Accidental Populist,” and the word has been used to describe him, at one point or another, in virtually every major newspaper in the past several months. It is a word with a specific meaning to the historians who study political campaigns: it describes someone who appeals to deep-seated resentments against corporate interests and the wealthy. Attaching the populist label to Edwards implies that he has planted himself on the far left of the inequality continuum, alongside the antitrade, anticorporate, predistribution Democrats. Back then, Edwards didn’t really know much about politics or policy. He had run only one campaign — his successful bid for a Senate seat from North Carolina in 1998 — and had spent his entire career before that as a plaintiff’s lawyer. By Edwards’s own admission, when his phalanx of presidential advisers sat down back then to discuss strategy or policy questions, Edwards was always the guy in the room who knew the least. It wasn’t until the later stages of the primaries, after he honed his theme of the “two Americas,” that Edwards found a voice of his own and was swept to the second spot on the Democratic ticket.nytimes.com
