Edwards Still Has A Pulpit
By ROB CHRISTENSEN, Staff Writer
Eleanor Irvin, a 72-year-old retired secretary from Dayton, Ohio, was one of the hundreds of people I met on the campaign trail this year. She told me that she viewed North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as a good family man who radiates charisma. She said Edwards reminded her of John F. Kennedy. "I wish the ticket had been turned around," Irvin said. "He should have been the presidential candidate and Kerry should have been the vice presidential candidate."
I ran into a lot of Eleanor Irvins, some of whom had traveled several hours to see the Democratic vice presidential candidate speak. Which is why I am skeptical of those who consider Edwards politically finished. Two veteran political observers last week said as much: consultant Dick Morris in Raleigh and newsman Sam Donaldson in Chapel Hill. There is an argument to be made that Edwards is washed up. In January he will give up his Senate seat. He didn't come close to carrying North Carolina, didn't carry the South and didn't even carry some of the swing areas in southern Ohio where he was sent to help the ticket. But it is difficult to judge the effectiveness of a vice presidential candidate, because most voters base their vote on the presidential candidate. To what extent did Dick Cheney, Al Gore or Dan Quayle help their bosses win? In some ways, the election liberates Edwards.
Had Kerry been elected, he would have spent the next four to eight years as his loyal lieutenant. The nation has not elected two consecutive Democratic presidents since Kennedy-Johnson in the early '60s. Now Edwards is free to seek the presidency in 2008, assuming his family is healthy. The early front-runner is likely to be New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Many Republicans assume Clinton will be the nominee. The GOP is fixated on the Clintons because they are the only flies in the ointment in what would have been a 28-year GOP White House reign, from 1980 until 2008. But many Democrats will be looking for a candidate to expand the party's base in small-town and rural America, and Clinton seems an unlikely person to do so. So who will emerge as the anti-Hillary alternative? Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh's name is often mentioned, but he makes Gore look exciting by comparison. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack? New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson? North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley?
Edwards would have an advantage over any of the anti-Hillary candidates. He has a national fund-raising base among the trial lawyers. He knows party leaders and activists in every state. And most important, he has been through a presidential campaign. But wait, you say. Edwards will be out of office. Can he run as Citizen Edwards? Edwards and his advisers can dream up a presidential vehicle over coffee and doughnuts one morning at Edwards' house. As president of the Save America Committee, Edwards can issue policy papers, hit the Sunday talk shows, speak at Democratic dinners around the country and travel abroad. So what that Edwards will no longer be in the Senate? No more pesky votes. And besides, no sitting senator has been elected president since Kennedy in 1960.
Source: http://newsobserver.com/news/story/1828346p-8141407c.html
Eleanor Irvin, a 72-year-old retired secretary from Dayton, Ohio, was one of the hundreds of people I met on the campaign trail this year. She told me that she viewed North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as a good family man who radiates charisma. She said Edwards reminded her of John F. Kennedy. "I wish the ticket had been turned around," Irvin said. "He should have been the presidential candidate and Kerry should have been the vice presidential candidate."
I ran into a lot of Eleanor Irvins, some of whom had traveled several hours to see the Democratic vice presidential candidate speak. Which is why I am skeptical of those who consider Edwards politically finished. Two veteran political observers last week said as much: consultant Dick Morris in Raleigh and newsman Sam Donaldson in Chapel Hill. There is an argument to be made that Edwards is washed up. In January he will give up his Senate seat. He didn't come close to carrying North Carolina, didn't carry the South and didn't even carry some of the swing areas in southern Ohio where he was sent to help the ticket. But it is difficult to judge the effectiveness of a vice presidential candidate, because most voters base their vote on the presidential candidate. To what extent did Dick Cheney, Al Gore or Dan Quayle help their bosses win? In some ways, the election liberates Edwards.
Had Kerry been elected, he would have spent the next four to eight years as his loyal lieutenant. The nation has not elected two consecutive Democratic presidents since Kennedy-Johnson in the early '60s. Now Edwards is free to seek the presidency in 2008, assuming his family is healthy. The early front-runner is likely to be New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Many Republicans assume Clinton will be the nominee. The GOP is fixated on the Clintons because they are the only flies in the ointment in what would have been a 28-year GOP White House reign, from 1980 until 2008. But many Democrats will be looking for a candidate to expand the party's base in small-town and rural America, and Clinton seems an unlikely person to do so. So who will emerge as the anti-Hillary alternative? Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh's name is often mentioned, but he makes Gore look exciting by comparison. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack? New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson? North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley?
Edwards would have an advantage over any of the anti-Hillary candidates. He has a national fund-raising base among the trial lawyers. He knows party leaders and activists in every state. And most important, he has been through a presidential campaign. But wait, you say. Edwards will be out of office. Can he run as Citizen Edwards? Edwards and his advisers can dream up a presidential vehicle over coffee and doughnuts one morning at Edwards' house. As president of the Save America Committee, Edwards can issue policy papers, hit the Sunday talk shows, speak at Democratic dinners around the country and travel abroad. So what that Edwards will no longer be in the Senate? No more pesky votes. And besides, no sitting senator has been elected president since Kennedy in 1960.
Source: http://newsobserver.com/news/story/1828346p-8141407c.html
posted by benny06 at
Monday, November 15, 2004
1 Comments:
John Edwards in 2008?
Now that the 2008 presidential race has begun – actually, it began long ago – there's the predictable talk that John Edwards will be a strong contender.
Maybe.
He's a compelling speaker, an agile debater and a charismatic campaigner. He's also very bright and very hard-working. He's won a ton of friends and admirers around the country. He's a church-going Southerner, which is the only kind of Democrat that seems to have a chance of being elected president these days.
Yet because Mr. Edwards chose not to run for re-election, he'll have only six years of government work on his resume', and the sixth year was pretty much consumed by campaigning. He'll find it a challenge to stay involved enough in public affairs to pad those credentials. The challenge will be even greater because his wife Elizabeth, a winning campaigner herself, is facing treatment for breast cancer.
Still, nobody who's watched Mr. Edwards in private or public life will count him out. And if his major opponent turns out to be Sen. Hillary Clinton, his path to the nomination might be fairly clear.
To be sure, Mrs. Clinton is a formidable politician, smart and experienced and tough. She might make an excellent president.
But she inspires as much animosity as admiration. If Democrats are thinking clearly, they're unlikely to nominate a candidate who arouses such passions.
Big if.
Wilmington Star
By
benny06, at 6:06 AM
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