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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
The boyish running mate revived his Two Americas speech with surprising verve Wednesday night. Why, he sounded positively Reaganesque -- which is precisely what has Republicans worried.
Jul 29, 2004 | By the time John Edwards stepped onto the stage at the Democratic Convention Wednesday night, the bar for his prime-time performance had been set almost impossibly high. Some of that was his doing; some of it was Barack Obama's. Edwards built an entire presidential campaign on the strength of his "Two Americas" stump speech, and Tuesday night Obama showed the delegates -- and the world -- just how good a political speech could be. As Edwards stepped to the microphone, the packed convention floor surged forward in a sweaty mosh pit of high expectations.
Edwards almost met them. He recounted the heroism of John Kerry, replayed the highlights of "Two Americas," and rebuffed Republican arguments that a Kerry-Edwards White House would be soft on defense. Edwards' speech was all things to all people, but in the end it wasn't quite all that.
"Two Americas" didn't play as well in a huge basketball arena as it did in small towns in South Carolina and Iowa -- perhaps because almost everyone in the arena had heard the speech before. Smiling John's tough-guy talk on terrorism seemed forced, and his "son of a millworker" story seemed somehow less compelling in the shadow of Obama's star turn the night before.
Still, even if John Edwards is no Barack Obama, he's no Dick Cheney either.
Deep in the speech, Edwards had delegates crying -- crying -- over a made-up story about a young woman sitting at home, worrying about making ends meet while her husband serves in Iraq. "She thinks she's alone," Edwards said. "But tonight, in this hall, you know what? She's got a lot of friends." Edwards then led the crowd in chanting "Hope is on the way."
Don't try this at home, Mr. Vice President.
Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, put an undeniably appealing face on a convention that veered Wednesday from a few off-the-script expressions of anger -- Rep. Charlie Rangel told delegates he was "mad as hell" about the actions of the Bush administration, and the Rev. Al Sharpton told the president that black votes "are not for sale" -- to a drumbeat on national security so martial that Democratic delegates could actually be heard chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!"
Edwards focused instead on what he felt America once was and can be again.
"Together, we will ensure that the image of America -- the image all of us love America, this great shining light, this beacon of freedom, democracy and human rights that the world looks up to -- that that beacon is always lit."
It sounds Reaganesque, and it is. And that's exactly why Karl Rove and his colleagues in the Bush-Cheney campaign have such a hard time dealing with John Edwards. Out of the box, the Republicans -- aided by media allies like Tucker Carlson -- laid into Edwards as a personal injury trial lawyer who's made millions off the suffering of others. The attack seems to have little traction with voters. While trial lawyers may be the great Satan for Bush's big business supporters, 69 percent of registered voters questioned in an NBC News poll said that Edwards' trial-lawyer past wouldn't influence their vote -- 14 percent said it would make them more likely to vote for him.
