LITTWIN: Edwards spoiling for a fight against corporate America

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Photo by Chris Schneider, © The Rocky

Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards meets with volunteers at the United Steelworkers Local 164 in Des Moines, Iowa., on Tuesday, January 1, 2008.

If you like your meat red, your battles epic, your brawls bloody, John Edwards, circa 2008, is your man.

If you like your lobbyists skewered, your rich corporations spanked, your presidential candidates as street-fightin' men, John Edwards, circa 2008, is definitely your man.

Once Edwards was the happy warrior (that, for you history buffs, was circa 2004). Now, he's not happy. Now, he tells the crowds about his grandfather the boxer (and, of course, his father the millworker) and how young Johnny got his "butt kicked" (his words) occasionally in childhood fights and how he had to fight to "survive." But that he always remembers his father's words - words he brought home, we guess, from the mill - not to ever start a fight but to never, ever, never back down from one.

John Edwards is ready to fight. Against "them." Against the lobbyists, the rich CEOs, the "entrenched interests," who have "a stranglehold on your democracy."

Reporters routinely do word counts on the number of times Edwards says the word "fight" in a speech. When Edwards comes out before a crowd, I keep looking for a mike to be lowered to the stage and Floyd Mayweather to step out to introduce him.

Listen in:

You can't be "nice" to them (note to Barack Obama) and beat them, Edwards says. You can't "take their money" (note to Hillary Clinton) and beat them.

You have to beat them by, well, just beating them. "Over and over and over," Edwards says, one hand gripping the microphone, another pointing to the crowd, as his deep Carolina drawl is putting its own kind of stranglehold on the audience.

It's a Saturday night at East High School. Edwards has about 1,000 people in the seats. The polls show him in a three-way tie for the lead, and no one, at this point, has any real idea who might win, particularly given that caucuses are peculiarly resistant to accurate polling.

The caucuses are Thursday, and this is the time for your themed closing arguments in Iowa. Obama is advocating change. Clinton is advocating experience and also the use of really large signs to fit her slogan: "Big Challenges, Real Solutions Tour - Time to Pick a President." And Edwards is advocating a fight - a fight for you, for me, for your children, for your parents, for your grandparents, for the little guy, for the medium-sized guy, for anyone he can pull in off the street, while, as one guy's sign in the audience read, "Kicking A-- for the Middle Class."

He doesn't say exactly how the battle will be fought. He's got an 80-page book of particulars, but he doesn't give many in the speech.

The crowd doesn't seem to mind. The crowd, in fact, is eating it up, which says something about anger - but also something about passion.

Edwards, who made millions as a trial lawyer, knows how to pitch his story and how to close a deal. He knows many Democrats are angry in George Bush's America. He talks about poverty and asks if America isn't better than that. He asks about the millions without health care and asks whether America isn't better than that. As a performance, it's Norma Rae standing on the table, it's fighting the "interests" in Waiting for Lefty. No one would be surprised if he broke out in Tom Joad's speech: "Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there . . ."

Instead, he cites Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. "He was vilified by corporate America," Edwards says of FDR. "They hated this guy. And his response? He welcomed their hatred."

Instead, he brings up the story of a little girl who died as her parents fought the insurance company to pay for a liver transplant and the man who had no insurance to fix his cleft palate.

"I thought to myself," he says, " 'How long in America are we going to allow drug companies and insurance companies to run this country?' "

The crowd is clearly moved, even if Edwards' critics like to point to his big house and expensive haircut as if that somehow means he's not interested in the plight of those less well off.

For a more reasoned critique, I went to see Obama the next night. He was also ready to fight - including going a few rounds with Edwards.

Obama said there was no shortage of anger in Washington. "We don't need more heat," he said. "We need more light." He praised Edwards for his poverty work, but wondered where Edwards was on these issues when he was in the Senate. "Who's equipped to do the job?" he asks his crowd about taking on the villainous lobbyists. Someone, Obama asks, who "talks about it" or someone "who's actually done it?"

Meanwhile, David Axelrod, a key Obama adviser, was hitting Edwards for hypocrisy for not strongly condemning so-called 527 "issue" ads that independent groups can run in campaigns. One independent group that is running Edwards-friendly ads includes a former Edwards campaign manager. And, strangely enough, some of the money is coming from Bunny Mellon, of the Mellons, of the Rockefeller-Carnegie-Mellon Mellons. It's that kind of season.

The stakes, of course, are enormous. Obama and Edwards are sparring to be the anti-Clinton candidate. Edwards, who doesn't have the money that Clinton and Obama have, has gambled everything on Iowa. And he's gambling in Iowa that the activists who caucus here are just the kind of people ready to step into the ring.

And he tells them, "Corporate greed is killing the middle class in America. It'll stop when we have the courage and backbone to stand up. We are not going to let these people kill our children's future. We are not going to let them kill the promise of America. We will not."

If you didn't get the point, he adds: "Anyone who says we don't have an epic battle on our hands is living in never-never land." Where, I'm guessing, they don't caucus at all.

• January 1, 2008

  8:17 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Michael writes:

  John Edwards is a shallow, "one trick pony", populist, empty suit, trial lawyer who either does not have a clue about how wealth and jobs are created in America (which makes him an idiot and a moron) or he is simply taking a populist position that he knows will stir up the masses and generate some votes (which makes him a fraud, a liar, and someone NOT to be trusted). When left wing morons like Edwards start tossing out the terms "corporate greed" and "special interests" we all need to see a red flag. These terms are meaningless and are only used by people like Edwards to generate class war, envy, and hatred of the very thing that we all strive for and that he himself achieved - success and wealth. Edwards has not one clue how to actually create wealth or jobs though. He is quick to find the fault with those that do though and make a buck (or millions of them) off those that actually grow the US economy and create jobs for the rest of us. Let's break down his 2 boogeyman words:
  Corporate Greed - This is the desire to make a profit on the goods and services that a company sells on the open market. This is what creates jobs because when a company develops a product or service that the world wants and it allows for people to be hired to make it and deliver it to the world. Yes, according to John Edwards this is evil and has to be destroyed.
  Special Interests - This is a group of people that has banded together because they have similar political beliefs and they wish to support a candidate or cause through their work or the donation of the money they have earned and have every right to spend how they wish. One man's loyal followers and supporters are another man's (or company's) "special interests". You cannot ban one form of this without banning it all and that is simply unconstitutional and Edwards (being a lawyer) should know this. So he tosses it out there knowing full well it will stir emotion and generate votes but also knowing he, or anyone else, cannot do a damn thing about people forming groups to influence politics through their actions and donations. So that makes him a demagogue and a liar.
  John Edwards is the worst kind of political candidate and he is dangerous. He has labeled the global war on Islamic Jihadist terrorism a "bumber sticker" slogan created by the right wing. Tell that to Benazir Bhutto who saw it up close just last week or the 3000 that died on 9.11. John Edwards is either totally lacking any grasp of the current global situation or once again he is lying through his teeth to play on the hatred from the left of President Bush to get votes. Either one makes him dangerous and NOT to be trusted.

• January 1, 2008

  11:24 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Spencer writes:

  Edwards was the class valedictorian in high school and college. Went to law school on scholarship. We have had the class clown (Bush) and he was a disaster. Time to try someone smart. Contrary to everything Michael has stated, Edwards will fight the good fight. It is time to reclaim our country from the CEO's that simply pass each other absurd raises.

• January 1, 2008

  12:08 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Michael writes:

  Spencer - Is that the best shot you have to my critical dissection of John Edwards? John Edwards was also a one term, lackluster, low performing, US Senator from North Carolina that could not win re-election and as the VP choice on the 2004 ticket with JFKerry, they could not even win the electoral votes from his own state. What "good fight" are you and Edwards referring to? The fight against capitalism? The fight against those that strive and do achieve success in the USA? The fight against those that pay the largest % of taxes of their income and of the total collected in the USA? The fight against those that create wealth and jobs? If that is the fight you and Edwards want then you will see me and my family, friends, colleagues, business associates, clients, and church members lined up on the other side ready to defeat you and those that think like you do.

• January 1, 2008

  2:31 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  GetReal writes:

  Edwards is just "channeling" for votes from the Spencer types, just like he did with unborn babies in his lawsuits that made him a multi-millionaire.
  http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/pol...

  And as evidenced above,it works with some.